Across The River and Into The Trees

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ACROSS THE RIVER
AND

INTO THE TREES

By the same author

IN OUR TIME
FIESTA

MEN WITHOUT WOMEN
A FAREWELL TO ARMS
DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON
THE TORRENTS OF SPRING
WINNER TAKE NOTHING
GREEN HILLS OF AFRICA
TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT
THE FIRST FORTY-NINE STORIES
FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS
THE ESSENTIAL HEMINGWAY
THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA

ERNEST HEMINGWAY
------

ACROSS THE RIVER

AND

INTO THE TREES

JONATHAN CAPE
THIRTY BEDFORD SQUARE
LONDON

FIRST PUBLISHED 1950
REPRINTED 1958

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
BRADFORD & DICKENS, LONDON, W.C. 1
t by a. W. bain & CO. LTD., LONDON

CHAPTER I

T hey started two hours before daylight, and at
first, it was not necessary to break the ice across the
canal as other boats had gone on ahead. In each
boat, in the darkness, so you could not see, but only hear
him, the poler stood in the stern, with his long oar. The
shooter sat on a shooting stool fastened to the top of a box
that contained his lunch and shells, and the shooter’s two,
or more, guns were propped against the load of wooden
decoys. Somewhere, in each boat, there was a sack with
one or two live mallard hens, or a hen and a drake, and
in each boat there was a dog who shifted and shivered
uneasily at the sound of the wings of the ducks that passed
overhead in the darkness.

Four of the boats went or up the main canal towards the
big lagoon to the north. A fifth boat had already turned
off into a side canal. Now, the sixth boat turned south into
a shallow lagoon, and there was no broken water.

It was all ice, new-frozen during the sudden, windless
cold of the night. It was rubbery and bending against the
thrust of the boatman’s oar. Then it would break as
sharply as a pane of glassy.;bjUt the boat made little forward
progress.

‘Give me an oar,’ the shooter in the sixth boat said.
He stood up and braced himself carefully. He could hear
the ducks passing in the darkness, and feel the restless
lurching of the dog. To the north he heard the sound of
breaking ice from the other boats.

‘Be careful,’ the poler in the stern said. ‘Don’t tip the
boat over.’

‘I am a boatman, too,’ the shooter said.

He took the long oar the boatman handed him and

5

ACROSS THE RIVER

reversed it so he could hold it by the blade. Holding the
blade he reached forward and punched the handle
through the ice. He felt the firm bottom of the shallow
lagoon, put his weight on the top of the wide oar-blade,
and holding with both hands and, first pulling, then
shoving, until the pole-hold was well to the stern, he drove
the boat ahead to break the ice. The ice broke like sheets
of plate glass as the boat drove into it, and on to it, and
astern the boatman shoved them ahead into the broken
passage.

After a while, the shooter, who was working hard and
steadily and sweating in his heavy^ clothes, asked the boat¬
man, ‘Where is the shooting barrel?’

‘Off there to the left. In the middle of the next bay.’

‘Should I turn for it now?’

‘As you wish.’

‘What do you mean, as I wish? You know the water. Is
there water to carry us there?’

‘The tide is low. Who knows?’

‘It will be daylight before we get there if we don’t
hurry.’

The boatman did not answer.

All right, you surly jerk, the shooter thought to him¬
self. We arc going to get there. We’ve made two-thirds
of the way now and if you are worried about having to
work to break ice to pick up birds, that is altogether
too bad.

‘Get your back in it, jerk,’ he said in English.

‘What?’ the boatman asked in Italian.

‘I said let’s go. It’s going to be light.’

It was daylight before they reached the oaken-staved
hogshead sunk in the bottom of the lagoon. It was sur¬
rounded by a sloping rim of earth that had been planted
with sedge and grass, and the shooter swung carefully up

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& INTO THE TREES

on to this, feeling the frozen grasses break as he stepped on
them. The boatman lifted the combination shooting stool
and shell box out of the boat and handed it to the shooter,
who leaned over and placed it in the bottom of the big
barrel.

The shooter, wearing his hip boots and an old combat
jacket, with a patch on the left shoulder that no one under¬
stood, and with the slight light places on the straps, where
stars had been removed, climbed down into the barrel
and the boatman handed him his two guns.

He placed them against the wall of the barrel and hung
his other shell bag between them, hanging it on two hooks
built into the wall of the sunken barrel. Then he leaned
the guns against each side of the shell bag.

Ts there water?’ he asked the boatman.

‘No water,’ the boatman said.

‘Can you drink the lagoon water?’

‘No. It is unhealthy.’

The shooter was thirsty from the hard work of breaking
the ice and driving the boat in and he felt his anger rise,
and then held it, and said, ‘Can I help you in the boat to
break ice to put out the decoys?’

‘No,’ the boatman said and shoved the boat savagely
out on to the thin sheet ice that cracked and ripped as the
boat drove up on to it. The boatman commenced smash¬
ing at the ice with the blade of his oar and then started
tossing decoys out to the side and behind him.

He’s in a beautiful mood, the shooter thought. He’s
a big brute, too. I worked like a horse coming out here.
He just pulled his weight and that’s all. What the hell is
eating him? This is his trade, isn’t it?

He arranged the shooting stool so he would have the
maximum swing to left and right, opened a box of shells,
and filled his pockets and opened another of the boxes of

7

ACROSS THE RIVER

shells in the shell bag so he could reach into it easily. In
front of him, where the lagoon lay glazed in the first light,
was the black boat and the tall, heavily built boatman
smashing with his oar at the ice and tossing decoys over¬
board as though he were ridding himself of something
obscene.

It was getting lighter now and the shooter could see the
low line of the near point across the lagoon. Beyond that
point he knew there were two other shooting posts and far
beyond it there was more marsh and then the open sea.
He loaded both his guns and checked the position of the
boat that was putting out decoys.

From behind him, he heard the incoming whisper of
wings and he crouched, took hold of his right-hand gun
with his right hand as he looked up from under the rim of
the barrel, then stood to shoot at the two ducks that were
dropping down, their wings set to brake, coming down
dark in the grey dim sky, slanting towards the decoys.

His head low, he swung the gun on a long slant, down,
well and ahead of the second duck, then without looking
at the result of his shot he raised the gun smoothly, up, up
ahead and to the left of the other duck that was climbing
to the left and as he pulled, saw it fold in flight and drop
among the decoys in the broken ice. He looked to his right
and saw the first duck a black patch on the same ice. He
knew he had shot carefully on the first duck, far to the
right of where the boat was and on the second, high out
and to the left, letting the duck climb far up and to the
left to be sure the boat was out of any line of fire. It was
a lovely double, shot exactly as he should have shot, with
complete consideration and respect for the position of the
boat and he felt very good as he reloaded.

‘Listen,* the man in the boat called. ‘Don’t shoot
towards the boat.’

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& INTO THE TREES

I’ll be a sad son of a bitch, the shooter said to himself. I
will indeed.

‘Get your decoys out,’ he called to the man in the boat.
‘But get them out fast. I won’t shoot until they arc all out.
Except straight overhead.’

The man in the boat said nothing that could be heard.

1 can’t figure it, the shooter thought to himself. He
knows the game. He knows I split the work, or more,
coming out. I never shot a safer or more careful duck in
my life than that. What’s the matter with him? I offered
to put the dekes out with him. The hell with him.

Out on the right now, the boatman was still chopping
angrily at the ice and tossing out the wooden decoys in a
hatred that showed in every move he made.

Don’t let him spoil it, the shooter told himself. There
won’t be much shooting with this ice unless the sun should
melt it later on. You probably will only have a few birds,
so don’t let him spoil it for you. You don’t know how
many more times you will shoot ducks and do not let any¬
thing spoil it for you.

He watched the sky lightening beyond the long point of
marsh and turning in the sunken barrel, he looked out
across the frozen lagoon and the marsh and saw the snow-
covered mountains a long way off. Low as he was, no
foot-hills showed and the mountains rose abruptly from
the plain. As he looked towards the mountains he could
feel a breeze on his face and he knew, then, the wind
would come from there, rising with the sun and that some
birds would surely come flying in from the sea when the
wind disturbed them.

The boatman had finished putting out the decoys. They
were in two bunches, one straight ahead and to the left
towards where the sun would rise and the other to the
shooter’s right. Now he dropped over the hen mallard

9

ACROSS THE RIVER

with her string and anchor and the calling duck bobbed
her head under water and raising and dipping her head,
splashed water on to her back.

‘Don’t you think it would be good to break more ice
around the edges?’ the shooter called to the boatman.
‘There’s not much water to attract them.’

The boatman said nothing but commenced to smash at
the jagged perimeter of ice with his oar. This ice breaking
w^as unnecessary and the boatman knew it. But the shooter
did not know it and he thought, I do not understand him
but I must not let him ruin it. I must keep it entire and
not let him do it. Every time you shoot now can be the
last shoot and no stupid son of a bitch should be allowed
to ruin it. Keep your temper, boy, he told himself

lO

CHAPTER II

B ut he was not a boy. He was fifty and a Colonel of
Infantry in the Army of the United States and to pass
a physical examination that he had to take the day
before he came down to Venice for this shoot, he had
taken enough mannitol hexanitrate to, well he did not
quite know what to — to pass, he said to himself.

The surgeon had been quite sceptical. But he noted the
readings after taking them twice.

‘You know, Dick,’ he said. ‘It isn’t indicated; in fact it
is definitely contra-indicated in increased intra-ocular and
intra-cranial pressure.’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ the shooter,
who was not a shooter, then, except potentially and w'as a
Colonel of Infantry in the Army of the United States,
reduced from being a general officer, said.

‘I have known you a long time, Colonel. Or maybe it
just seems a long time,’ the surgeon told him.

‘It’s been a long time,’ the Colonel said.

‘We sound like song writers,’ the surgeon said. ‘But
don't you ever run into anything, or let any sparks strike
you, when you’re really souped up on nitroglycerin. They
ought to make you drag a chain like a high-octane truck.
‘Wasn’t my cardiograph O.K.?’ the Colonel asked.
‘Your cardiograph was wonderful. Colonel. It could
have been that of a man of twenty-five. It might have
been that of a boy of nineteen.’

‘Then what are you talking about?’ the Colonel asked.
That much mannitol hexanitrate produced a certain
amount of nausea, sometimes, and he was anxious for the
interview to terminate. He was also anxious to lie down
and take a seconal. I ought to write the manual of minor

11

ACROSS THE RIVER

tactics for the heavy pressure platoon, he thought. Wish I
could tell him that. Why don’t I just throw myself on the
mercy of the court? You never do, he told himself. You
always plead them non-guilty.

‘How many times have you been hit in the head?’ the
surgeon asked him.

‘You know,’ the Colonel told him. ‘It’s in my 201.’

‘How many times have you been hit on the head?’

‘Oh Christ.’ Then he said. ‘You are asking for the
army or as my physician?’

‘As your physician. You didn’t think I’d try to wind
your clock, did you?’

‘No, Wes. I’m sorry. Just what was it you wanted to
know?’

‘Concussions.’

‘Real ones?’

‘Any time you were cold or couldn’t remember after¬
wards.’

‘Maybe ten,’the Colonel said. ‘Counting polo. Give or
take three.’

‘You poor old son of a bitch,’ the surgeon said. ‘Colonel,
sir,’ he added.

‘Can I go now?’ the Colonel asked.

‘Yes, sir,’ the surgeon said. ‘You’re in good shape.’

‘Thanks,’ the Colonel said. ‘Want to go on a duck shoot
down in the marshes at the mouth of the Tagliamento?
Wonderful shoot. Some nice Italian kids I met up at
Cortina own it.’

‘Is that where they shoot coots?’

‘No. They shoot real ducks at this one. Good kids.
Good shoot. Real ducks. Mallard, pin-tail, widgeon.
Some geese. Just as good as at home when we were kids.’

‘I was kids in ’twenty-nine and ’thirty.’

‘That’s the first mean thing I ever heard you say.’

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& INTO THE TREES

‘I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant I didn’t remem¬
ber when duck shooting was good. I’m a city boy, too.’

‘That’s the only God-damn trouble with you, too. I
never saw a city boy yet that was worth a damn.’

‘You don’t mean that, do you, Colonel?’

‘Of course not. You know damn well I don’t.’

‘You’re in good shape, Colonel,’ the surgeon said. ‘I’m
sorry I can’t go on the shoot. I can’t even shoot.’

‘Hell,’ said the Colonel. ‘That doesn’t make any differ¬
ence. Neither can anybody else in this army. I’d like to
have you around.’

‘I’ll give you something else to back up what you’re
using.’

‘Is there anything?’

‘Not really. They’re working on stuff, though.’

‘Let ’em work,’ the Colonel said.

‘I think that’s a laudable attitude, sir.’

‘Go to hell,’ the Colonel said. ‘You sure you don’t want
to go?’

‘I get my ducks at Longchamps on Madison Avenue,’
the surgeon said. ‘It’s air-conditioned in the summer and
it’s warm in the winter and I don’t have to get up before
first light and wear long-horned underwear.’

‘All right, City Boy. You’ll never know.’

‘I never wanted to know,’ the surgeon said. ‘You’re
in good shape, Colonel, sir.’

‘Thanks,’ said the Colonel and went out.

13

CHAPTER III

T hat was day before yesterday. Yesterday he had
driven down from Trieste to Venice along the old
road that ran from Montfalcone to Latisana and
across the flat country. He had a good driver and he
relaxed completely in the front seat of the car and looked
out at all this country he had known when he was a boy.

It looks quite differently now, he thought. I suppose it
is because the distances are all changed. Everything is
much smaller when you are older. Then, too, the roads are
better now and there is no dust. The only times I used to
ride through it was in a camion. The rest of the times we
walked. I suppose what I looked for then, was patches of
shade when we fell out, and wells in farmyards. And ditches,
too, he thought. I certainly looked for plenty of ditches.

They made a curve and crossed the Tagliamento on a
temporary bridge. It was green along the banks and men
were fishing along the far shore where it ran deep. The
blown bridge was being repaired with a snarl of riveting
hammers, and eight hundred yards away the smashed
buildings and outbuildings of what was now a ruined
country house once built by Longhena showed where the
mediums had dropped their loads.

‘Look at it/ the driver said. Tn this country you find a
bridge or a railway station. Then go half a mile from it
in any direction and you find it like that.’

‘I guess the lesson is,’ the Colonel said, ‘don’t ever build
yourself a country house, or a church, or hire Giotto to
paint you any frescoes, if you’ve got a church, eight
hundred yards away from any bridge ’

‘I knew there must be a lesson in it, sir,’ the driver said.
They were past the ruined villa now and on to the

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& INTO THE TREES

straight road with the willows growing by the ditches still
dark with winter, and the fields full of mulberry trees.
Ahead a man was pedalling a bicycle and using both his
hands to read a paper.

‘If there are heavies the lesson ought to say a mile,' the
driver said. ‘Would that be about right, sir?’

Tf it’s guided missiles,’ the Colonel said. ‘Better make
it two hundred and fifty miles. Better give that cyclist
some horn.’

The driver did, and the man moved over to the side of
the road without either looking up or touching his handle¬
bars. As they passed him, the Colonel tried to see what
paper he was reading, but it was folded over.

T guess a man would do better now not to build himself
a fine house or a church, or to get who did you say it was
to paint frescoes?’

‘Giotto, I said. But it could be Piero della Francesca or
Mantegna. Could be Michelangelo.’

‘Do you know a lot about painters, sir?’ the driver asked.

They were on a straight stretch of road now and were
making time so that one farm blended, almost blurred, into
another farm and you could only see what was far ahead and
moving towards you. Lateral vision was just a condensation
of flat, low country in the winter. I’m not sure I like speed,
the Colonel thought. Brueghel would have been in a hell
of a shape if he had to look at the country like this.

‘Painters?’ he answered the driver. ‘I know quite a
little about them, Burnham.’

‘I’m Jackson, sir. Burnham’s up at the rest centre at
Cortina. That’s a fine place, sir.’

‘I’m getting stupid,’ the Colonel said. ‘Excuse me,
Jackson. It is a fine place. Good chow. Well run.
Nobody bothers you.’

‘Yes, sir,’Jackson agreed. ‘Now the reason I asked you

15

ACROSS THE RIVER

about painters, is these madonnas. I thought I ought to see
some painting so I went to that big place in Florence.’

The Uffizi? The Pitti?’

‘Whatever they call it. The biggest one. And I kept
looking at those paintings until madonnas started to run
out of my ears. I tell you, Colonel, sir, a man who hasn’t
been checked out on this painting can only see just about
so many madonnas and it gets him. You know my theory?
You know how crazy they are about bambinis and the less
they got to eat the more bambinis they got and that they
have coming? Well, I think these painters were probably
big bambini lovers like all Italians. I don’t know these
ones you mentioned just now, so I don’t include them in
my theory and you’ll put me straight anyway. But it
looks to me like these madonnas, that I really saw plenty
of, sir, it looks to me like these just straight ordinary
madonna painters were sort of a manifest, say, of this
whole bambini business, if you understand what I mean.’

‘ Plus the fact that they were restricted to religious subjects.’

‘Yes, sir. Then you think there is something to my
theory?’

‘Sure. I think it is a little more complicated, though.’

‘Naturally, sir. It’s just my preliminary theory.’

‘Do you have any other theories on art, Jackson?’

‘No, sir. That bambini theory is as far as I’ve thought
it through. What I wish is, though, they would paint
some good pictures of that high country up around the
rest centre at Cortina.’

‘Titian came from up there,’ the Colonel said. ‘At least
they say he did. I went down the valley and saw the house
where he was supposed to be born.’

‘Was it much of a place, sir?’

‘Not so much.’

‘Well, if he painted any pictures of that country up

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& INTO THE TREES

around there, with those sunset colour rocks and the pines
and the snow and all the pointed steeples ~ ’

'Campaniles^' the Colonel said. ‘Like that one ahead at
Cet^gia. It means bell tower.’

‘Well, if he painted any really good pictures of that
country Td sure as hell like to trade him out of some of them.*

‘He painted some wonderful women,’ the Colonel said,

Tf I had a joint or a roadhouse or some sort of an inn>
say, I could use one of those,’ the driver said. ‘But if I
brought home a picture of some woman, my old woman
would run me from Rawlins to Buffalo. I’d be lucky if L
got to Buffalo.’

‘You could give it to the local museum.’

‘All they got in the local museum is arrow heads, war
bonnets, scalping knives, different scalps, petrified fish,
pipes of peace, photographs of Liver Eating Johnston, and
the skin of some bad man that they hanged him and some
doctor skinned him out. One of those women pictures
would be out of place there.’

‘See that next campanile down there across the plain?’
the Colonel said. ‘I’ll show you a place down there where
we used to fight when I was a kid.’

‘Did you fight here, too, sir?’

‘Yeah,’ the Colonel said.

‘Who had Trieste in that war?’

‘The Krauts. The Austrians, I mean.’

‘Did we ever get it?’

‘Not till the end when it was over.’

‘Who had Florence and Rome?’

‘We did.’

‘Well, I guess you weren’t so damned bad off then.’

‘Sir,’ the Colonel said gently.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the driver said quickly. ‘I was in the
Thirty-Sixth Division, sir.’

B A.R.T.T. 17

ACROSS THE RIVER

TVe seen the patch.’

T was thinking about the Rapido, sir, I didn’t mean to
be insolent or lacking in respect.’

‘You weren’t,’ the Colonel said. ‘You were just think¬
ing about the Rapido. Listen, Jackson, everybody who’s
soldiered a long time has had their Rapidos and more
than one.*

‘I couldn’t take more than one, sir.’

The car went through the cheerful town of San Dona
di Piave. It was built up and new, but no more ugly than
a middle western town, and it was as prosperous and as
cheery as Fossalta, just up the river, is miserable and
gloomy, the Colonel tliought. Did Fossalta never get over
the first war? I never saw it before it was smacked, he
thought. They shelled it badly before the big fifteenth of
June offensive in ’eighteen. Then we shelled it really badly
before we re-took it. He remembered how the attack had
taken offfrom Monastier, gone through Fornace, and on this
winter day he remembered how it had been that summer.

A few weeks ago he had gone through Fossalta and had
gone out along the sunken road to find the place where he
had been hit, out on the river bank. It was easy to find
because of the bend of the river, and where the heavy
machine gun post had been the crater was smoothly
grassed. It had been cropped, by sheep or goats, until it
looked like a designed depression in a golf course. The
river was slow and a muddy blue here, with reeds along
the edges, and the Colonel, no one being in sight, squatted
low, and looking across the river from the bank where
you could never show your head in daylight, relieved him¬
self in the exact place where he had determined, by
triangulation, that he had been badly wounded thirty
years before.

‘A poor effort,’ he said aloud to the ri\ cr and the river

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& INTO THE TREES

bank that were heavy with autumn quiet and wet from
the fall rains. ‘But my own.’

He stood up and looked around. There was no one in
sight and he had left the car down the sunken road in
front of the last and saddest rebuilt house in Fossalta.

‘Now ril complete the monument/ he said to no one
but the dead, and he took an old Solingen clasp knife, such
as German poachers carry, from his pocket. It locked on
opening and, twirling it, he dug a neat hole in the moist
earth. He cleaned the knife on his right combat boot and
then inserted a brown ten thousand lira note in the hole
and tamped it down and put the grass that he had cored
out over it.

‘That is twenty years at five hundred lira a year for the
Medaglia d’Argento al Valore Militare. The V.C. carries
ten guineas, I believe. The D.S.C. is non-productive.
The Silver Star is free. Fll keep the change,’ he said.

It’s fine now, he thought. It has merde, money, blood;
look how that grass growls; and the iron’s in the earth
along with Gino’s leg, both of Randolfo’s legs and my right
knee-cap. It’s a wonderful monument. It has everything.
Fertility, money, blood and iron. Sounds like a nation.
Where fertility, money, blood and iron is; there is the father-
land. We need coal though. We ought to get some coal.

Then he looked across the river to the rebuilt white
house that had once been rubble, and he spat in the river.
It was a long spit and he just made it.

‘I couldn’t spit that night nor afterw^ards for a long time,’
he said. ‘But I spit good now for a man who doesn’t chew.’

He walked slowly back to where the car w^as parked.
The driver was asleep.

‘Wake up, son,’ he had said. ‘Turn her around and take
that road towards Treviso. We don’t need a map on this
part. I’ll give you the turns.’

19

CHAPTER IV

N OW, on his way into Venice, keeping strictly con¬
trolled and un-thinking his great need to be there,
the big Buick cleared the last of San Dona and came
up on to the bridge over the Piavc.

They crossed the bridge and were on the Italian side of
the river and he saw the old sunken road again. It was as
smooth and undistinguished now, as it was all along the
river. But he could see the old positions. And now, along
each side of the straight, flat, canal-bordered road they
were making time on were the willows of the two canals
that had contained the dead. There had been a great
killing at the last of the offensive and someone, to clear
the river bank positions and the road in the hot weather,
had ordered the dead thrown into the canals. Unfortu¬
nately, the canal gates were still in the Austrians’ hands
down the river, and they were closed.

So there was little movement to the water, and the dead
had stayed there a long time, floating and bloating face
up and face down regardless of nationality until they had
attained colossal proportions. Finally, after organization
had been established, labour troops hauled them out at
night and buried them close to the road. The Colonel
looked for added greenness close to the road but could not
note any. However, there were many ducks and geese in
the canals, and men were fishing in them all along the road.

They dug them all up anyway, the Colonel thought,
and buried them in that big ossario up by Nervesa.

‘We fought along here when I was a kid,’ the Colonel
told the driver.

Tt’s a God-damn flat country to fight in,’ the driver
said. ‘Did you hold that river?’

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& INTO THE TREES

‘Yes/ the Colonel said. ‘We held it and lost it and took
it back again.’

‘There isn’t a contour here as far as you can see.’

‘That was the trouble/ the Colonel said. ‘You had to
use contours you couldn’t see, they were so small, and
ditches and houses and canal banks and hedgerows. It
was like Normandy only flatter. I think it must have been
something like fighting in Holland.’

‘That river sure doesn’t look anything like the Rapido.’

‘It was a pretty good old river,’ the Colonel said. ‘Up
above, it had plenty of water then, before all these hydro¬
electric projects. And it had very deep and tricky
channels in the pebbles and shingle when it was shallow.’

He knew how boring any man’s war is to any other man,
and he stopped talking about it. They always take it per¬
sonally, he thought. No one is interested in it, abstractly,
except soldiers and there are not many soldiers. You make
them and the good ones are killed, and above they are
always bucking for something so hard they never look or
listen. They are always thinking of what they have seen
and while you are talking they are thinking of what they
will say and what it may lead to in their advancement or
their privilege. There was no sense boring this boy, who,
for all his combat infantryman badge, his Purple Heart
and the other things he wore, was in no sense a soldier but
only a man placed, against his will, in uniform, who had
elected to remain in the army for his own ends.

‘What did you do in civil life, Jackson?’ he asked.

‘I was partners with my brother in a garage in Rawlins,
Wyoming, sir.’

‘Are you going back there?’

‘My brother got killed in the Pacific and the guy who
was running the garage was no good,’ the diiver said. ‘We
lost what we had put in it.’

21

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘That’s bad,’ the Colonel said.

‘You’re God-damned right it’s bad,’ the driver said and
added, ‘sir’.

The Colonel looked up the road.

He knew that if they kept on this road they would come,
shortly, to the turn that he was waiting for; but he was
impatient.

‘Keep your eyes open and take a left hand turn on the
road leading off this pike,’ he told the driver.

‘Do you think those low roads will be good with this
big car, sir?’

‘We’ll see,’ the Colonel said. ‘Hell, man, it hasn’t
rained in three weeks.’

‘I don’t trust those side roads in this low country.’

‘If we get stuck, I’ll haul you out with oxen.’

‘I was only thinking about the car, sir.’

‘Well, think about what I told you and turn off on the
first left side road you see if it looks practicable.’

‘That looks like one coming up, from the hedges,’ the
driver said.

‘You’re all clear behind. Pull up just ahead of it and
I’ll go over and have a look.’

He stepped out of the car and walked across the wide,
hard-surfaced road and looked at the narrow dirt road,
with the swift flowing canal beside it, and the thick hedge
beyond. Beyond the hedge, he saw a low red farmhouse
with a big barn. The road was dry. There were not even
cart ruts sunk in it. He got back into the car.

‘It’s a boulevard,’ he said. ‘Quit worrying.’

‘Yes, sir. It’s your car, sir.’

‘I know,’ the Colonel said. ‘I’m still paying for it. Say,
Jackson, do you always suffer so much any time you go
off a highway on to a secondary road?’

‘No, sir. But there’s a lot of difference between a jeep,

22

& INTO THE TREES

and a car as low hung as this. Do you know the clearance
you have on your differential and your body frame on
this?’

T’ve got a shovel in the trunk and we’ve got chains.
Wait till you see where we’re going after we leave Venice.’

‘Do we go all the way in this car?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll see.’

‘Think about your fenders, sir.’

‘We’ll cut the fenders off like the Indians do in Okla¬
homa. She’s over-fendered right now. She’s got too much
of everything except engine. Jackson, that’s a real engine
she’s got.’

‘It certainly is, sir. It’s a great pleasure to drive that big
engine on the good roads. That’s why I don’t want any¬
thing to happen to her.’

‘That’s very good of you, Jackson. Now just quit
suffering.’

‘I’m not suffering, sir.’

‘Good,’ said the Colonel.

He was not, either, because just then he saw, beyond
the line of close-bunched brown trees ahead, a sail moving
along. It was a big red sail, raked sharply down from the
peak, and it moved slowly behind the trees.

Why should it always move your heart to see a sail
moving along through the country, the Colonel thought.
Why docs it move my heart to sec the great, slow, pale
oxen? It must be the gait as well as the look of them and
the size and the colour.

But a good fine big mule, or a string of pack mules in
good condition, moves me, too. So does a coyote every
time I ever see one, and a wolf, gaited like no other animal,
grey and sure of himself, carrying that heavy head and
with the hostile eyes.

‘Ever see any wolves out around Rawlins, Jackson?’

23

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘No, sir. Wolves were gone before my time; they
poisoned them out. Plenty coyotes, though.’

‘Do you like coyotes?’

T like to hear them nights.*

‘So do I. Better than anything, except seeing a ship
sailing along through the country.’

‘There’s a boat doing that over there, sir.’

‘On the Sile canal,’ the Colonel told him. ‘She’s a sail¬
ing barge going to Venice. This wind is off the mountains
now and she makes it along pretty good. It’s liable to turn
really cold tonight if this wind holds and it ought to bring
in plenty ducks. Turn to your left here and we’ll run
along the canal. There’s a good road.’

‘They didn’t have much duck shooting where I came
from. But there was plenty of it in Nebraska along the
Platte.’

‘Do you want to shoot where we’re going?’

‘I don’t believe so, sir. I’m not much of a shot, and I’d
rather stay in that sack. It’s a Sunday morning, you know.’

‘I know,’ the Colonel said. ‘You can stay in the sack
until noon if you want.’

‘I brought my repellent. I ought to sleep O.K.’

‘I’m not sure you’ll need it,’ the Colonel said. ‘Did you
bring any K-rations or Ten in One? They’re liable to eat
Italian food, you know.*

‘I brought a few cans to help out and a little stuff to
give away,’

‘That’s good,’ the Colonel said.

He was looking aiiead now to see where the canal road
joined the main highway again. There he knew that he
would see it on a clear day such as thus was. Across the
marshes, brown as those at the mouths of the Mississippi
around Pilot Town are in winter, and with their reeds
bent by the heavy north wind, he saw the squared tower

24

& INTO THE TREES

of the church at Torcello and the high campanile of
Burano beyond it. The sea was a slate blue and he could
see the sails of twelve sailing barges running with the wind
for Venice.

ril have to wait until we cross the Dese River above
Noghera to see it perfectly, he thought. It is strange to
remember how we fought back there along the canal that
winter to defend it and we never saw it. Then one time, I
was back as far as Noghera and it was clear and cold like
today, and I saw it across the water. But I never got into
it. It is my city, though, because I fought for it when I
was a boy, and now that I am half a hundred years old,
they know I fought for it and am a part owner and they
treat me well.

Do you think that’s why they treat you well, he asked
himself.

Maybe, he thought. Maybe they treat me well because
I’m a chicken colonel on the winning side. I don’t believe
it, though. I hope not, anyway. It is not France, he
thought.

There you fight your way into a city that you love and
are very careful about breaking anything and then, if you
have good sense, you are careful not to go back because
you will meet some military characters who will resent
your having fought your way in. Vive la France et les
pommes de terre frites. Liberte^ Venalite, et StupiditL The
great clarU. of the French military thinking. They haven’t
had a military thinker since du Picq. He was a poor
bloody Colonel, too. Mangin^ Maginot and Gamelin, Take
your choice. Gentlemen. Three schools of thought. One;
I hit them on the nose. Two; I hide behind this thing
which docs not cover my left flank. Three; I hide my
head in the sand like an ostrich, confident in the greatness
of France as a military power and then take off.

25

ACROSS THE RIVER

Take off is putting it very cleanly and pleasantly. Sure,
he thought, whenever you over-simplify you become
unjust. Remember all the fine ones in the Resistance, re¬
member Foch both fought and organized and remember
how fine the people were. Remember your good friends
and remember your deads. Remember plenty things and
your best friends again and the finest people that you
know. Don’t be a bitter nor a stupid. And what has that
to do with soldiering as a trade? Cut it out, he told
himself. You’re on a trip to have fun.

‘Jackson,’ he said, ‘are you happy?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good. Shortly, we are coming to a view that I want
you to see. You only have to take one look at it. The
entire operation will be practically painless.’

I wonder what he’s riding me for now, the driver
thought. Just because he was a B.G. once he knows
everything. If he was any good as a B.G. why didn’t he
hold it? He’s been beat up so much he’s slug-nutty.

‘There’s the view, Jackson,’ the Colonel said. ‘Stop her
by the side of the road and we’ll take a look.’

The Colonel and the driver walked over to the Venice
side of the road and looked across the lagoon that was
whipped by the strong, cold wind from the mountains that
sharpened all the outlines of buildings so that they were
geometrically clear.

‘That’s Torcello directly opposite us,’ the Colonel
pointed. ‘That’s where the people lived that were driven
off the mainland by the Visigoths. They built that church
you sec there with the square tower. There were thirty
thousand people lived there once and they built that
church to honour their Lord and to worship him. Then,
after they built it, the mouth of the Sile River silted up or
a big flood changed it, and all that land we came through

26

& INTO THE TREES

just now got flooded and started to breed mosquitoes and
malaria hit them. They all started to die, so the elders got
together and decided they should pull out to a healthy
place that would be defensible with boats, and where the
Visigoths and the Lombards and the other bandits couldn’t
get at them, because these bandits had no sea*power. The
Torcello boys were all great boatmen. So they took the
stones of all their houses in barges, like that one we just
saw, and they built Venice.’

He stopped. ‘Am I boring you, Jackson?’

‘No, sir. I had no idea who pioneered Venice.’

Tt was the boys from Torcello. They were very tough
and they had very good taste in building. They came from
a little place up the coast called Caorle. But they drew on
all the people from the towns and the farms behind when
the Visigoths overran them. It was a Torcello boy who
was running arms into Alexandria, who located the body
of St. Mark and smuggled it out under a load of fresh pork
so the infidel customs guards wouldn’t check him. This
boy brought the remains of St. Mark to Venice, and he’s
their patron saint and they have a cathedral there to him.
But by that time, they were trading so far to the east that
the architecture is pretty Byzantine for my taste. They
never built any better than at the start there in Torcello.
That’s Torcello there.’

It was, indeed.

‘St. Mark’s square is where the pigeons are and where
they have that big cathedral that looks sort of like a moving
picture palace, isn’t it?’

‘Right, Jackson. You’re on the ball. If that’s the way
you look at it. Now you look beyond Torcello you will
see the lovely campanile on Burano that has damn near as
much list on it as the leaning tower of Pisa. That Borano
is a very over-populated little island where the women

27

ACROSS THE RIVER

make wonderful lace, and the men make bambinis and
work day-times in the glass factories in that next island you
see on beyond with the other campanile^ which is Murano.
They make wonderful glass day-times for the rich of all
the world, and then they come home on the little vaporetto
and make bambinis. Not everyone passes every night with
his wife though. They hunt ducks nights too, with big
punt guns, out along the edge of the marshes on this lagoon
you’re looking across now. All night long on a moonlight
night you hear the shots.’ He paused.

‘Now when you look past Murano you sec Veni< e.
That’s my town. There’s plenty more I could show you,
but I think we probably ought to roll now. But take one
good look at it. This is where you can see how it all hap¬
pened. But nobody ever looks at it from here.’

Tt’s a beautiful view. Thank you, sir.’

'O.K.,’ the Colonel said. ‘Let’s roll.’

28

CHAPTER V

B ut he continued to look and it was all as wonderful to
him and it moved him as it had when he was eighteen
years old and had seen it first, understanding nothing of
it and only knowing that it was beautiful. The winter had
come very cold that year and all the mountains were white
beyond the plain. It was necessary for the Austrians to
try to break through at the angle where the Sile River
and the old bed of the Piavc were the only lines of defence.

If you had the old bed of the Piave then you had the
Sile to fall back on if the first line did not hold. Beyond
the Sile there was nothing but bare-assed plain and a good
road network into the Veneto plain and the plains of
Lombardy, and the Austrians attacked again and again
and again late through the winter, to try to get on to this
fine road that they were rolling on now which led straight
to Venice. That winter the Colonel, who was a lieutenant
then, and in a foreign army, which had always made him
slightly suspect afterwards in his own army, and had done
his career no good, had a sore throat all winter. This sore
throat was from being in the water so much. You could not
get dry and it was better to get wet quickly and stay wet.

The Austrian attacks were ill-co-ordinated, but they
were constant and exasperated and you first had the heavy
bombardment which was supposed to put you out of busi¬
ness, and then, when it lifted, you checked your positions
and counted the people. But you had no time to care for
wounded, since you knew that the attack was coming im¬
mediately, and then you killed the men who came wading
across the marshes, holding their rifles above the water and
coming as slow as men wade, waist deep.

If they did not lift the shelling when it started, the

29

ACROSS THE RIVER

Colonel, then a lieutenant, often thought, I do not know
what we would be able to do. But they always lifted it and
moved it back ahead of the attack.

If we had lost the old Piave and were on the Sile they
would move it back to the second and third lines; although
such lines were quite untenable, and they should have
brought all their guns up very close and whammed it in
all the time they attacked and until they breached us.
But thank God, some high fool always controls it, the
Colonel thought, and they did it piecemeal.

All that winter, with a bad sore throat, he had killed
men who came, wearing the stick bombs hooked up on a
harness under their shoulders with the heavy, calf-hide
packs and the bucket helmets. They were the enemy.

But he never hated them; nor could have any feeling
about them. He commanded with an old sock around his
throat, which had been dipped in turpentine, and they
broke down the attacks with rifle fire and with the machine
guns which still existed, or w^ere usable, after the bombard¬
ment. He taught his people to shoot, really, which is a
rare ability in continental troops, and to be able to look at
the enemy when they came, and, because there w^as always
a dead moment when the shooting was free, they became
very good at it.

But you always had to count and count fast after the
bombardment to know how many shooters you would
have. He was hit three times that winter, but they were all
gift wounds; small wounds in the flesh of the body with¬
out breaking bone, and he had become quite confident of
his personal immortality since he knew he should have
been killed in the heavy artillery bombardment that
always preceded the attacks. Finally, he did get hit pro¬
perly and for good. No one of his other wounds had ever
done to him what the first big one did. I suppOvSe it is just

30

& INTO THE TREES

the loss of the immortality, he thought. Well, in a way,
that is quite a lot to lose.

This country meant very much to him, more than he
could, or would ever tell anyone and now he sat in the
car happy that in another half hour they would be in
Venice. He took two mannitol hexanitrate tablets; since
he had always been able to spit since 1918, he could take
them dry, and asked,

‘How are you doing, Jackson?’

‘Fine, sir.’

‘Take the loft outside road when we hit the fork for
Mestre and we’ll be able to see the boats along the canal
and miss that main traffic.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the driver said. ‘Will you check me on the fork?’

‘Of course,’ the Colonel said.

They were coming up on Mestre fast, and already it was
like going to New York the first time you were ever there
in the old days when it was shining, white and beautiful.
I stole that, he thought. But that w^as before the smoke.
We are coming into my town, he thought. Christ, what a
lovely town.

They made the left turn and came along the canal w^here
the fishing boats tied up, and the Colonel looked at them
and his heart was happy because of the brown nets and
the w'icker fish traps and the clean, beautiful lines of the
boats. Ifs not that they arc picturesque. The hell with
picturesque. They are just damned beautiful.

They passed the long line of boats in the slow canal that
carried water from the Brenta, and he thought about the
long stretch of the Brenta where the great villas were, with
their lawms and their gardens and the plane trees and the
cypresses. I’d like to be buried out there, he thought. I
know the place very well. I don’t believe you could fix it,
though. I don’t know'. I know' some people that might let

3 ^

ACROSS THE RIVER

me be buried on their place. I’ll ask Alberto. He might
think it was morbid, though.

For a long time he had been thinking about all the fine
places he would like to be buried and what parts of the
earth he would like to be a part of. The stinking, putre¬
fying part doesn’t last very long, really, he thought, and
anyway you are just a sort of mulch, and even the bones
will be some use finally. I’d like to be buried way out at
the edge of the grounds, but in sight of the old graceful
house and the tall, great trees. I don’t think it would be
much of a nuisance to them. I could be a part of the
ground where the children play in the evenings, and in
the mornings, maybe, they would still be training jumping
horses and their hoofs would make the thudding on the turf,
and trout would rise in the pool when there was a hatch of fly.

They were up on the causeway from Mestrc to Venice
now with the ugly Breda works that might have been
Hammond, Indiana.

‘What do they make there, sir?’Jackson asked.

‘The company makes locomotives in Milan,’ the
Colonel said. ‘Here they make a little of everything in
the metallurgic line.’

It was a miserable view of Venice now and he always
disliked this causeway except that you made such good
time and you could see the buoys and the channels.

‘This town makes a living on its own,’ he said to Jack-
son. ‘She used to be the queen of the seas and the people
are very tough and they give less of a good God-damn
about things than almost anybody you’ll ever meet. It’s
a tougher town than Cheyenne when you really know it,
and everybody is very polite.’

‘I wouldn’t say Cheyenne was a tough town, sir.’

‘Well, it’s a tougher town than Casper.’

‘Do you think that’s a tough town, sir?’

32

& INTO THE TREES

Tt’s an oil town. It’s a nice town.’

‘But I don’t think it’s tough, sir. Or ever was.’

‘O.K., Jackson. Maybe we move in different circles.
Or maybe we have a differing definition for the word.
But this town of Venice, with everybody being polite and
having good manners, is as tough as Cooke City, Montana,
on the day they have the Old Timers’ h'ish Fry.’

‘My idea of a tough town is Memphis.’

‘Not like Chicago, Jackson. Memphis is only tough if
you arc a Negro. Chicago is tough North, South, there
isn’t any East, and West. But nobody has any manners.
But in this country, if you ever want to know a really tough
town where they cat wonderfully, too, go to Bologna.’

‘1 never was there.’

‘Well, there’s the Fiat garage where we leave the car,’
the Colonel said. ‘You can leave the key at the office.
They don’t steal. I’ll go in the bar while you park upstairs.
They have people that will bring the bags.’

‘Is it okay to leave your gun and shooting gear in the
trunk, sir?’

‘Sure. They don’t steal here. I told you that once.’

‘I wanted to take the necessary precautions, sir, on your
\\ulliable property.’

‘You’re so damned noble that sometimes you stink,’ the
Ck)lonel said. ‘Get the wax out of your ears and hear what
I say the fust time.’

‘I heard you, sir,’Jackson said. The Colonel looked at
him contemplatively and with the old deadlincss.

He sure is a mean son of a bitch, Jackson thought, and
he can be so God-damn nice.

‘Get my and your bag out and park her up there and
check your oil, your water and your tyres,’ the Colonel
said, and walked across the oil and rubber stained cement
of the entry of the bar.

C A.R.I.T. 33

CHAPTER VI

I N the bar, sitting at the first table as he came in, there
was a post-war rich from Milan, fat and hard as only
Milanese can be, sitting with his expensive looking and
extremely desirable mistress. They were drinking negrotiis,
a combination of two sweet vermouths and seltzer water,
and the Colonel wondered how much taxes the man had
escaped to buy that sleek girl in her long mink coat and
the convertible he had seen the chauffeur take up the long,
winding ramp to lock away. The pair stared at him with
the bad manners of their kind and he saluted, lightly, and
said to them in Italian, T am sorry that I am in uniform.
But it is a uniform,- Not a costume.’

Then he turned his back on them, without waiting to
see the effect of his remark, and w^alked to the bar. From
the bar you could watch your luggage, just as well as the
two pescecani were watching theirs.

He is probably a Commendatore, he thought. She is a
beautiful, hard piece of work. She is damned beautiful,
actually. I wonder what it would have been like if I liad
ever had the money to buy me that kind and put them into
the mink? I’ll settle for what I have, he thought, and they
can go and hang themselves.

The bar-tender shook hands with him. This bar-tender
was an Anarchist but he did not mind the Colonel being a
Colonel at all. He w^as delighted by it and proud and lov¬
ing about it as though tlie Anarchists had a Colonel, too,
and in some ways, in the several months that they had
known each other, he seemed to feel that he had invented,
or at least erected, the Colonel as you might be happy
about participating in the erection of a campanile^ or even
the old church at Torcello.

34

& INTO THE TREES

The bar-tender had heard the conversation, or, rather,
the flat statement at the table and he was very happy.

He had already sent down, via the dumb-waiter, for a
Gordon’s gin and Campari and he said, ‘It is coming up
in that hand-pulled device. How does everything go at
Trieste?’

‘About as you would imagine.’

T couldn’t even imagine.’

‘Then don’t strain,’ the Colonel said, ‘and you will
never get piles.’

‘I wouldn’t mind it if I was a Colonel.’

‘1 never mind it.’

‘You’d be overrun like a dose of salts,’ the w'aiter said.

‘Don’t tell the Honorable Pacciardi,’ the Colonel said.

He and the bar-tender had a joke about this because the
Honourable Pacciardi was Minister of Defence in the
Italian Republic. He was the same age as the Colonel and
had fought very well in the first world war, and had also
fought in Spain as a battalion commander where the
Colonel had known him when he, himself, was an ob¬
server. The seriousness with which the Honourable Pac¬
ciardi took the post of Minister of Defence of an inde¬
fensible country was a bond between the Colonel and the
bar-tender. The two of them were quite practical men
and the vision of the Honourable Pacciardi defending the
Italian Rcf»ublic stimulated their minds.

‘It’s sort of funny up there,’ the Colonel said, ‘and I
don’t mind it.’

‘We must mechanize the Honourable Pacciardi,’ the
bar-tender said. ‘And supply him with the atomic bomb.’

‘I’ve got three of them in the back of the car,’ the
Colonel said. ‘The new model, complete with handles.
But we can’t leave him unarmed. We must supply him
with botulism and anthrax.’

35

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘We cannot fail the Honourable Pacciardi,’ the bar¬
tender said. ‘Better to live one day as a lion than a
hundred years as a sheep.’

‘Better to die on our feet than to live on our knees,’ the
Colonel said. ‘Though you better get on your belly damn
fast if you want to stay alive in plenty places.’

‘Colonel, do not say anything subversive.’

‘We will strangle them with our bare hands,’ the
Colonel said. ‘A million men will spring to arms over¬
night.’

‘Whose arms?’ the bar-tender asked.

‘All that will be attended to,’ the Colonel said. Tt’s
only a phase in the Big Picture.’

Just then the driver came in the door. The Colonel saw
that while they had been joking, he had not watched the
door and he was annoyed, always, with any lapse of
vigilance or of security.

‘What the hell’s been keeping you, Jackson? Have a
drink.’

‘No, thank you, sir.’

You prissy jerk, the Colonel thought. But I better stop
riding him; he corrected.

‘We’ll be going in a minute,’ the Colonel said. T’ve
been trying to learn Italian from my friend here.’ He
turned to look at the Milan profiteers; but they were gone.

I’m getting awfully slow, he thought. Somebody will
take me any day now. Maybe even the Honourable
Pacciardi, he thought.

‘How much do I owe you?’ he asked the bar-tender
shortly.

The bar-tender told him and looked at him with his
wise Italian eyes, not merry now, although the lines of
merriment were clearly cut where they radiated from the
corners of each eye. I hope there is nothing wrong with

36

& INTO THE TREES

him, the bar-tender thought. I hope to God, or anything
else, there’s nothing really bad.

‘Goodbye, my Colonel,’ he said.

‘Ciac?,’ the Colonel said. ‘Jackson, we are going down
the long ramp and due north from the exit to where the
small launches are moored. The varnished ones. There
is a porter with the two bags. It is necessary to let them
carry them since they have a concession.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Jackson.

The two of them went out the door and no one looked
back at anyone.

At the imbarcadero, the Colonel tipped the man who
had carried their two bags and then looked around for a
boatman he knew.

He did not recognize the man in the launch that was
first on call, but the boatman said, ‘Good day. my
Colonel. I’m the first.’

‘How much is it to the Gritti?’

‘You know as well as I, my Colonel. We do not bargain.
We have a fixed tariff.’

‘What’s the tariff?’

‘Three thousand five hundred.’

‘We could go on the vaporetto for sixty.’

‘And nothing prevents you going,’ the boatman, who
was an elderly man with a red but un-choleric face, said.
‘They won't take you to the Gritti but they will stop at
the imbarcadero past Harry’s, and you can telephone for
someone from the Gritti to get your bags.’

And what would I buy with the God-damn three thou¬
sand five hundred lire; and this is a good old man.

‘Do you want me to send that man there?’ he pointed
to a destroyed old man who did odd jobs and ran errands
around the docks, always ready with the un-needed aid to
the elbow of the ascending or descending passenger, alw ays

37

ACROSS THE RIVER

ready to help when no help was needed, his old felt hat
held out as he bowed after the un-needed act. ‘He’ll take
you to the vaporetto. There’s one in twenty minutes.’

‘The hell with it,’ the Colonel said. ‘Take us to the
Gritti.’

'‘Conpiacere^ the boatman said.

The Colonel and Jackson lowered themselves into the
launch which looked like a speed boat. It was radiantly
varnished and lovingly kept and was powered with a
marine conversion of a tiny Fiat engine that had served its
allotted time in the car of a provincial doctor and had been
purchased out of one of the graveyards of automobiles;
those mechanical elephant cemeteries that are the one
certain thing you may find in our world near any popu¬
lated centre; and been re-conditioned and re-converted
to start this new life on the canals of this city.

‘How is the motor doing?’ the Colonel asked. He could
hear her sounding like a stricken tank or T.D., except the
noises were in miniature from the lack of power.

‘So-so,’ the boatman said. He moved his free hand in a
parallel motion.

‘You ought to get the smallest model Universal puts
out. That’s the best and lightest small marine engine I
know.’

‘Yes,’ the boatman said. ‘There arc quite a few things
I should get.’

‘Maybe you’ll have a good year.’

‘It’s always possible. Lots of pescecani come down from
Milano to gamble at the Lido. But nobody would ride
twice in this thing on purpose. As a boat, it is fine, too. It
is a well built, pleasant boat. Not beautiful as a gondola
is, of course. But it needs an engine.’

‘I might get you a jeep engine. One that was con¬
demned and you could work it over.’

38

& INTO THE TREES

‘Don’t talk about such things,’ the boatman said.
‘Things like that don’t happen. I don’t want to think
about it.’

‘You can think about it,’ the Colonel said. T’m talking
true.’

‘You mean it.’

‘Sure. I don’t guarantee anything. I’ll sec what I can
do. How many children have you got?’

‘Six. Two male and four female.’

‘Hell, you mustn’t have believed in the Regime. Only
six.’

‘I didn't believe in the Regime.’

‘You don’t have to give me that stuff,’ the Colonel said.
‘It would have been quite natural for you to have believed
in it. Do you think I hold that against a man after we’ve
won?’

They were through the dull part of the canal that runs
from Piazzale Roma to Ca’Foscari, though none of it is
dull, the Colonel thought.

It doesn’t all have to be palaces nor churches. Certainly
that isn’t dull. He looked to the right, the starboard, he
thought. I’m on the water. It was a long low pleasant
building and there was a trattoria next to it.

I ought to live here. On retirement pay 1 could make it
all right. No Gritti Palace. A room in a house like that
and the tides and the boats going by. I could read in the
mornings and walk around town before lunch and go
every day to see the Tintorettos at the Accademia and to
the Scuola San Rocco and eat in good cheap joints behind
the market or, maybe, the woman that ran the house
would cook in the evenings.

I think it would be better to have lunch out and get
some exercise walking. It’s a good town to walk in. I
guess the best, probably. I never walked in it that it

39

ACROSS THE RIVER

wasn’t fun. I could learn it really well, he thought, and
then I’d have that.

It’s a strange, tricky town and to walk from any part
to any other given part of it is better than working cross¬
word puzzles. It’s one of the few things to our credit that
we never smacked it, and to their credit that they re¬
spected it.

Christ, I love it, he said, and I’m so happy I helped
defend it when I was a punk kid, and with an insufficient
command of the language and I never even saw her until
that clear day in the winter when I went back to have that
small wound dressed, and saw her rising from the sea.
Merde, he thought, we did very well that winter up at
the junction.

I wish I could fight it again, he thought. Knowing what
I know now and having what we have now. But they’d
have it too and the essential problem is just the same,
except who holds the air.

And all this time he had been watching the bow of the
beat-up beautifully varnished, delicately brass-striped
boat, with the brass all beautifully polished, cut the
brown water and seen the small traffic problems.

They went under the white bridge and under the un¬
finished wood bridge. Then they left the red bridge on the
right and passed under the first high-flying white bridge.
Then there was the black iron fret-work bridge on the
canal leading into the Rio Nuovo and they passed the
two stakes chained together but not touching: like us the
Colonel thought. He watched the tide pull at them and he
saw how the chains had worn the wood since he first had
seen them. That’s us, he thought. That’s our monument.
And how many monuments are there to us in the canals
of this town?

Then they still went slowly until the great lantern that

40

& INTO THE TREES

was on the right of the entrance to the Grand Canal where
the engine commenced its metallic agony that produced
a slight increase in speed.

Now they came down and under the Accademia be¬
tween the pilings where they passed, at touching distance,
a heavily loaded black, diesel boat full of cut timber, cut
in chunks, to burn for firewood in the damp houses of the
Sea City.

‘That’s beech, isn’t it?’ the Colonel asked the boatman.

‘Beech and another wood that is cheaper that I do not
recall, at this moment, the name of.*

‘Beech is, to an open fire, as anthracite coal is to a stove.
Where do they cut that beech?’

‘I’m not a man of the mountains. But I think it comes
from up beyond Bassano on the other side of the Grappa.
I went there to the Grappa to see where my brother was
buried. It was an excursion that they made from Bassano,
and we went to the big ossario. But we returned by Feltre.
I could see it was a fine timber country on the other side
as you came down the mountains into the valley. We came
down that military road, and they were hauling lots of
wood.’

‘In what year was your brother killed on Grappa?’

‘In nineteen-eighteen. He was a patriot and inflamed
by hearing d’Annunzio talk, and he volunteered before
his class was called. We never knew him very well because
he went so quickly,’

‘How many were you in the family?’

‘We were six. We lost two beyond the Isonzo, one on
the Bainsizza and one on the Carso. Then we lost this
brother I speak of on the Grappa and I remained.’

‘I’ll get you the God-damned jeep complete with
handles,’ the Colonel said. ‘Now let’s not be morbid and
look for all the places where my friends live.’

41

ACROSS THE RIVER

They were moving up the Grand Canal now and it
was easy to see where your friends lived.

‘That’s the house of the Contessa Dandolo/ the Colonel
said.

He did not say, but thought, she is over eighty, and she
is as gay as a girl and does not have any fear of dying.
She dies her hair red and it looks very well. She is a good
companion and an admirable woman.

Her palazzo was pleasant looking, set well back from
the Canal with a garden in front and a landing place of
its own where many gondolas had come, in their various
times, bringing hearty, cheerful, sad and disillusioned
people. But most of them had been cheerful because they
V ere going to see the Contessa Dandolo.

Now, beating up the Canal, against the cold wind off
the mountains, and with the houses as clear and sharp as
on a winter day, which, of course, it was, they saw the old
magic of the city and its beauty. But it was conditioned,
for the Colonel, by his knowing many of the people who
lived in the palazzos; or if no one lived there now, knowing
to what use the different places had been put.

There’s Alvarito’s mother’s house, he thought, and did
not say.

She never lives there much and stays out at the country
house near Treviso where they have trees. She’s tired of
there not being trees in Venice. She lost a fine man and
nothing really interests her now except efficiency.

But the family at one time lent the house to George
Gordon, Lord Byron, and nobody sleeps now in Byron’s
bed nor in the other bed, two flights below, where he used
to sleep with the gondolier’s wife. They are not sacred, nor
relics. They are just extra beds that were not used after¬
wards for various reasons, or possibly to respect Lord
Byron who was well loved in this town, in spite of all the

42

& INTO THE TREES

errors he committed. You have to be a tough boy in this
town to be loved, the Colonel thought. They never cared
anything for Robert Browning, nor Mrs. Robert Brown¬
ing, nor for their dog. They weren’t Venetians no matter
how well he wrote of it. And what is a tough boy, he
asked himself. You use it so loosely you should be able to
define it. I suppose it is a man who will make his play
and then backs it up. Or just a man who backs his play.
And I’m not thinking of the theatre, he thought. Lovely
as the theatre can be.

And yet, he thought, seeing now the little villa, close up
against the water, ugly as a building you would see on the
boat train from Havre or Cherbourg, coming into the
banlicue before Paris as you came into town. It was over¬
run witli badly administered trees, and not a place that
you would live in if you could help it. There he lived.

They loved him for his talent, and because he was bad,
and he was brave. A Jewish boy with nothing, he stormed
the country with his talent, and his rhetoric. He was a
more miserable character than any that I know and as
mean. But the man I think of to compare him with never
put the chips on the line and went to war, the Colonel
thought, and Gabriele d’Annunzio (I always wondered
what his real name was, he thought, because nobody is
named d'Annunzio in a practical country and perhaps he
was not Jewish and what difference did it make if he was
or was not) had moved through the different arms of the
service as he had moved into and out of the arms of
different women.

All the arms were pleasant that d’Annunzio served with
and the mission was fast and easily over, except the Infan¬
try. He remembered how d’Annunzio had lost an eye in
a crash, flying as an observer, over Trieste or Pola, and
how, afterwards, he had always worn a patch over it and

43

ACROSS THE RIVER

people who did not know, for, then, no one really knew,
thought it had been shot out at the Veliki or San Michele
or some other bad place beyond the Carso where everyone
died, or was incapacitated, that you knew. But d’Annun-
zio, truly, was only making heroic gestures with the other
things. An Infantryman knows a strange trade, he
thought; perhaps the strangest. He, Gabriele, flew, but
he was not a flier. He was in the Infantry but he was
not an Infantryman and it was always the same appear¬
ances.

And the Colonel remembered one time when he had
stood, commanding a platoon of assault troops, while it
was raining in one of the interminable winters, when the
rain fell always; or at least, always when there were
parades or speeches to the troops, and d’Annunzio, with
his lost eye, covered by the patch, and his white face, as
white as the belly of a sole, new turned over in the market,
the brown side not showing, and looking thirty hours dead,
was shouting, ‘Morire non a basta,’ and the Colonel, then
a lieutenant, had thought, ‘What the muck more do they
want of us?’

But he had followed the discourse and, at the end, when
the Lieutenant-Colonel d’Annunzio, writer and national
hero, certified and true if you must have heroes, and the
Colonel did not believe in heroes, asked for a moment of
silence for our glorious dead, he had stood stiffly to atten¬
tion. But his platoon, who had not followed the speech,
there being no loud speakers then, and they being slightly
out of hearing of the orator, responded, as one man, at the
pause for the moment of silence for our glorious dead, with
a solid and ringing ‘Evviva d’Annunzio’.

They had been addressed before by d’Annunzio after
victories, and before defeats, and they knew what they
should shout if there was any pause by an orator.

44

& INTO THE TREES

The Colonel, being then a lieutenant, and loving his
platoon, had joined with them and uttered, with the tone
of command, ‘Evviva d’Annunzio’, thus absolving all
those who had not listened to the discourse, speech, or
harangue and attempting, in the small way a lieutenant
can attempt anything, except to hold an indefensible
position; or intelligently direct his own part in an attack;
to share their guilt.

But now he was passing the house where the poor beat-
up old boy had lived with his great, sad and never pro¬
perly loved actress and he thought of her wonderful hands
and her so transformable face, that was not beautiful, but
that gave you all love, glory and delight and sadness; and
of the way the curve of her forearm could break your heart,
and he thought, Christ they are dead and I do not know
where either one is buried even. But I certainly hope they
had fun in that house.

‘Jackson,’ he said, ‘that small villa on the left belonged
to Gabriele d’Annunzio, who was a great writer,’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Jackson, T’m glad to know about him. I
never heard of him.’

‘I’ll check you out on what he wrote if you ever want to
read him,’ the Colonel said. ‘There are some fair English
translations.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Jackson. ‘I’d like to read him any
time I have time. He has a nice practical looking place.
What did you say the name was?’

‘D’Annunzio,’ the Colonel said. ‘Writer.’

He added to himself, not wishing to confuse Jackson,
nor be difficult, as he had been with the man several
times that day, writer, poet, national hero, phraser of the
dialectic of Fascism, macabre egotist, aviator, commander,
or rider, in the first of the fast torpedo attack boats,
Lieutenant-Colonel of Infantry without knowing how to

45

ACROSS THE RIVER

command a company, nor a platoon properly, the great,
lovely writer of Notturno whom we respect, and jerk.

Up ahead now there was a crossing place of gondolas at
the Santa Maria del Giglio and, beyond, was the wooden
dock of the Gritti.

‘That’s the hotel where we are stopping at, Jackson.’

The Colonel indicated the three-storey, rose-coloured,
small, pleasant palace abutting on the Canal. It had been
a dependence of the Grand Hotel — but now it was its
own hotel and a very good one. It was probably the best
hotel, if you did not wish to be fawned on, or fussed over,
or over-flunkied, in a city of great hotels and the Colonel
loved it.

Tt looks O.K. to me, sir,’Jackson said.

‘It is O.K.,’ the Colonel said.

The motor boat came gallantly up beside the piling of
the dock. Every move she makes, the Colonel thought, is
a triumph of the gallantry of the ageing machine. We do
not have war horses now like old Traveller, or Marbot’s
Lysette who fought, personally, at Eylau. We have the
gallantry of worn-through rods that refuse to break; the
cylinder head that does not blow though it has every right
to and the rest of it.

‘We’re at the dock, sir,’Jackson said.

‘Where the hell else would we be, man. Jump out while
I settle with this sportsman,’

He turned to the boatman and said, ‘That was thirty-
five hundred, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, my Colonel.’

‘I’ll not forget about the over-age jeep engine. Take
this and buy your horse some oats.’

The porter, who was taking the bags from Jackson,
heard this and laughed.

‘No veterinarian will ever fix his horse.’

46

& INTO THE TREES

‘She still runs/ the boatman said.

‘But she doesn’t win any races/ the porter said. ‘How
are you, my Colonel?’

‘I couldn’t be better,’ the Colonel said. ‘How are all
the members of the Order?’

‘All members are well,’

‘Good,’ said the Colonel. T will go in and see the
Grand Master.’

‘He is waiting for you, my Colonel.’

‘Let us not keep him waiting, Jackson,’ the Colonel
said. ‘You may proceed to the lobby with this gentleman
and tell them to sign me in. See the sergeant gets a room,’
he said to the porter. ‘We’re here for the night only.’

‘The Baron Alvarito was here looking for you.’

‘I’ll find him at Harry’s.’

‘Good, my Colonel.’

‘Where is the Grand Master?’

‘I’ll find him for you.’

‘Tell him I’ll be in the bar.’

47

CHAPTER VII

T he bar was just across from the lobby of the Gritti,
although lobby, the Colonel thought, was not the
accurate term to describe that gracious entrance.
Didn’t Giotto describe a circle, he thought? No, that was
in maths. What he remembered and loved best as an
anecdote about that painter was: 'It was easy,’ said
Giotto as he drew the perfect circle. Who the hell had
said that and where?

‘Good evening, Privy Councillor,’ he said to the bar¬
man, who was not a full paid-up member of the order but
whom he did not wish to offend. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Drink, my Colonel.’

The Colonel looked out of the windows and the door of
the bar on to the waters of the Grand Canal. He could
see the big black hitching post for the gondolas and the
late afternoon winter light on the wind-swept water.
Across the Canal was the old Palace and a wood barge,
black and broad, was coming up the Canal, her bluff bows
pushing up a wave even though she had the wind behind
her.

‘MakeitaverydryMartini,’the Colonel said. ‘A double.’
Just then the Grand Master came into the room. He
was wearing his formal attire as a head waiter. He was
truly handsome as a man should be, from the inside out,
so that his smile starts from his heart, or whatever is the
centre of the body, and comes frankly and beautifully to
the surface, which is the face.

He had a fine face with the long, straight nose of his part
of the Veneto; the kind, gay, truthful eyes and the honour¬
able white hair of his age, which was two years older than
that of the Colonel.

48

& INTO THE TREES

He advanced smiling, lovingly and yet conspiratorially,
since they both shared many secrets and he extended his
hand, which was a big, long, strong, spatular-fingercd
hand; well kept as was becoming, as well as necessary, to
his position and the Colonel extended his Own hand, which
had been shot through twice and was slightly misshapen.
Thus contact was made between two old inhabitants of
the Veneto, both men and brothers in their membership in
the human race, the only club that either one paid dues to
and brothers, too, in their love of an old country, much
fought over and always triumphant in defeat, which they
had both defended in their youth.

Their handshake was only long enough to feel, firmly,
the contact and the pleasure of meeting and then the
Maitre d’Hotel said, ‘My Colonel.’

The Colonel said, '‘Gran Maestro.^

Then the Colonel asked the Gran Maestro to accompany
him in a drink, but the Maitre d'Hotel said that he was
working. It was impossible as well as forbidden.

‘ ★ forbidden,’ said the Colonel.

‘Of course,’ the Gran Maestro said. ‘But everyone must
comply with his duty and here the rules are reasonable
and we all should comply with them; me especially, as a
matter of precept.’

‘Not for nothing are you the Gran Maestro,'" the Colonel
said.

‘Give me a small Carpano punio e mezzo^ the Gran
Maestro said to the bar-tender, who was still outside of the
Order for some small, not defined, un-stated reason. ‘To
drink to the ordine.^

Thus, violating orders and the principle of precept and
example in command, the Colonel and the Gran Maestro
downed a quick one. They did not hurry nor did the
Gran Maestro worry. They simply made it fast.

D A.R.I.T. 49

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘Now, let us discuss the affairs of the Order,’ the
Colonel said. ‘Are we in the secret chamber?’

‘We are,’ said the Gran Maestro, ‘Or I declare it to be
such.’

‘Continue,’ said the Colonel.

The Order, which was a purely fictitious organization,
had been founded in a series of conversations between the
Gran Maestro and the Colonel. Its name was El Ordine
Military Nobile y Espirituoso de I os Caballeros de Brusadelli,
The Colonel and the head waiter both spoke Spanish and
since that is the best language for founding orders, they
had used it in the naming of this one, which was named
after a particularly notorious multi-millionaire non¬
taxpaying profiteer of Milan, who had, in the course of a
dispute over property, accused his young wife, publicly and
legally through due process of law, of having deprived him
of his judgment through her extraordinary sexual demands.

'Gran Maestro^ the Colonel said. ‘Have you heard from
our Leader, The Reverend One?'

‘Not a word. He is silent these days.'

‘He must be thinking.’

‘He must.’

‘Perhaps he is meditating on new and more distin¬
guished shameful acts.’

‘Perhaps. He has not given me any word.’

‘But we can have confidence in him.’

‘Until he dies,’ the Gran Maestro said. ‘After that he
can roast in hell and we will revere his memory.’

‘Giorgio,’ the Colonel said. ‘Give the Gran Maestro
another short Carpano.'

‘If it is your order,’ the Gran Maestro said, ‘I can only
obey.'

They touched glasses.

‘Jackson,’ the Colonel called. ‘You’re on the town.

50

& INTO THE TREES

You can sign here for chow. I don’t want to see you until
eleven hundred tomorrow in the lobby, unless you get
into trouble. Do you have money?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Jackson said and thought, the old son of a
bitch really is as crazy as they say. But he might have
called me instead of shouting.

T don’t want to see you,’ the Colonel said.

Jackson had entered the room and stood before him at a
semblance of attention.

T’m tired of seeing you, because you worry and you
don’t have fun. For Christ sake have yourself some fun.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You understand what I said?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Repeat it.’

‘Ronald Jackson, T5 Serial Number 100678, will pre¬
sent himself in the lobby of this Gritti Hotel at ii.oo to¬
morrow morning, I don’t know the date, sir, and will
absent himself from the Colonel’s sight and will have some
fun. Or,’ he added, ‘will make every reasonable attempt
to attain that objective.’

‘I’m sorry, Jackson,’ the Colonel said. ‘I’m a ★

‘I beg to differ with the Colonel,’ Jackson said.

‘Thank you, Jackson,’ the Colonel told him. ‘Ivlaybe
I’m not. I hope you arc correct. Now muck off. You’ve
got a room here, or you should have and you can sign for
chow. Now try and have some fun.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Jackson.

When he was gone, the Gran Maestro said to the Colonel,
‘What is the boy? One of those sad Americans?’

‘Yes,’ the Colonel said. ‘And by Jesus Christ we’ve got
a lot of them. Sad, self-righteous, over-fed and under¬
trained. If they are under-trained, it is my fault. But
we’ve got some good ones, too.’

51

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘Do you think they would have done Grappa, Pasubio
and the Basso Piave as we did?’

‘The good ones, yes. Maybe better. But you know,
in our army, they don’t even shoot for self-inflicted
wounds.’

‘Jesus,’ said the Gran Maestro, He and the Colonel both
remembered the men who decided that they did not wish
to die, not thinking that he who dies on Thursday does
not have to die on Friday and how one soldier would wrap
another’s puttce-ed leg in a sandbag so there would be no
powder burns and loose off at his friend from as far a
distance as he figured he could hit the calf of the leg with¬
out hitting bone and then fire twice over the parapet to
alibi the shot. They had this knowledge shared between
them and it was for this reason and for a true, good hatred
of all those w ho profited by war that they had founded the
Order.

They knew, the two of them, who loved and respected
each other, how poor boys who did not want to die, would
share the contents of a match-box to produce the infection
that would keep them from the next murderous frontal
attack.

They knew about the other boys who put the big ten-
centime pieces under their arm-pits to produce jaundice.
And they knew% too, about the richer boys who, in differ¬
ent cities, had paraffin injected under their knee-caps so
they would not have to go to the war.

They knew how garlic could be used to produce certain
effects which could absent a man from an attack and they
knew all, or nearly all, of the other tricks; for one had been
a sergeant and the other a lieutenant of infantry and they
had fought on the three key points, Pasubio, Grappa and
the Piave, where it all made sense.

They had fought, too, in the earlier stupid butchery on

52

& INTO THE TREES

the Isonzo and the Carso. But they were both ashamed of
those who had ordered that and they never thought about
it except as a shameful, stupid thing to be forgotten and
the Colonel remembered it technically as something to
learn from. So, now, they had founded the Order of
Brusadelli; noble, military and religious, and there were
only five members.

‘What is the news of the Order?’ the Colonel asked the
Gran Maestro.

‘We have ascended the cook at the Magnificent to the
rank of Commendatore. He comported himself as a man
three times on his fiftieth birthday. I accepted his state¬
ment without corroboration. He never lied ever.’

‘No. He never lied. But it is a topic on which you must
be chary in your credibility.’

T believed him. He looked ruined.’

‘I can remember him when he was a tough kid and we
called him the cherry buster.’

'Anch' io"

‘Have you any concrete plans for the Order during the
Winter?’

‘No, Supreme Commander.’

‘Do you think we should give a homage to the Honour¬
able Pacciardi?’

‘As you wish.’

‘Let’s defer it,’ the Colonel said. He thought a moment,
and signalled for another dry Martini.

‘Do you think we might organize a homage and mani¬
festation in some historic place such as San Marco or the
old Church at Torcello in favour of our Great Patron,
Brusadelli, the Revered One?’

‘I doubt if the religious authorities would permit it at
this moment.’

‘Then let us abandon all ideas of public manifestations

53

ACROSS THE RIVER

for this winter, and work within our cadres, for the good of
the Order.’

T think that is soundest,’ the Gran Maestro said. ‘We
will regroup.’

‘And how are you, yourself?’

‘Awful,’ the Gran Maestro said. ‘I have low blood
pressure, ulcers and I owe money.’

‘Arc you happy?’

‘All the time,’ the Gran Maestro said. ‘I like my work
very much and I meet extraordinary and interesting
characters, also many Belgians. They are what we have
instead of the locusts this year. Formerly wc had the
Germans. What was it Caesar said, “And the bravest of
these are the Belgians.” But not the best dressed. Do you
agree?”

‘I’ve seen them quite well costumed in Brussels,’ the
Colonel said. ‘A well-fed, gay capital. Win, lose, or
draw.’

‘We should have fought in Flanders in the old days.’

‘We were not born in the old days,’ the Colonel said.
‘So wc automatically could not have fought then.’

‘I wish we could have fought with the Condottieri when
all you had to do was out-think them and they conceded.
You could think and I would convey your orders.’

‘We’d have to take a few towns for them to respect our
thinking.’

‘We would sack them if they defended them,’ the Gran
Maestro said. ‘W^hat towns would you take?’

‘Not this one,’ the Colonel said. ‘Fd take Vicenza,
Bergamo and Verona. Not necessarily in that order.’

‘You’d have to take two more.’

‘I know,’ the Colonel said. He was a general now again
and he was happy. ‘I figured that I’d by-pass Brescia. It
could fall of its own weight.’

54

& INTO THE TREES

‘And how are you, Supreme Commander?’ the Gran
Maestro said, for this taking of towns had pulled him out
of his depth.

He was at home in his small house in Treviso, close to
the fast-flowing river under the old walls. The weeds
waved in the current and the fish hung in the shelter of
the weeds and rose to insects that touched the water in the
dusk. He was at home, too, in all operations that did not
involve more than a company and understood them as
clearly as he understood the proper serving of a small
dining-room; or a large dining-room.

But when the Colonel became a general officer again,
as he had once been and thought in terms that were as far
beyond him as calculus is distant from a man who has
only the knowledge of arithmetic, then he was not at
home and their contact was strained and he wished the
Colonel would return to things they both knew together
when they were a lieutenant and a sergeant.

'What would you do about Mantova?’ the Colonel asked.

T do not know, my Colonel. I do not know whom you
are fighting, nor what forces they have, nor what forces
are at your disposal.’

T thought you said we were Condotticri. Based on this
town or on Padova.’

‘My Colonel,’ the Gran Maestro said, and he had dimi¬
nished in no way, ‘I know nothing, truly, about Con-
dottieri. Nor really how they fought then. I only said I
would like to fight under you in such times.’

‘There aren’t any such times any more,’ the Colonel
said and the spell was broken.

What the hell, maybe there never was any spell, the
Colonel thought. The hell with you, he said to himself.
Cut it out and be a human being when you’re half a
hundred years old.

55

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘Have another Carpano,^ he said to the Gran Maestro.

‘My Colonel, you will allow me to refuse because of the
ulcers^’

‘Yes. Yes. Of course. Boy, what’s your name, Giorgio?
Another dry Martini. Secco^ molio secco e doppio'

Breaking spells, he thought. It is not my trade. My
trade is killing armed men. A spell should be armed if I’m
to break it. But we have killed many things which were
not armed. All right, spell breaker, retract.

'Gran Maestro,' he said. ‘You arc still Gran Maestro and

★ the Condottieri.’

‘They were ★ many years ago. Supreme Com¬
mander.’

‘Exactly,’ the Colonel said.

But the spell was broken.

‘I’ll see you at dinner,’ the Colonel said. ‘What is there?’

‘We will have anything you wish and what we do not
have I will send out for.’

‘Do you have any fresh asparagus?’

‘You know we cannot have it in these months. It comes
in April and from Bassano.’

‘Then you think of something and I’ll eat it,’ the
Colonel said.

‘How many will you be?’ the Maitre d’Hotel asked.

‘We’ll be two,’ the Colonel said. ‘What time do you
close the bistro?'

‘We will serve dinner as late as you wish to eat, my
Colonel.’

‘I’ll try to be in at a sound hour,’ the Colonel said.
‘Goodbye, Gran Maestro' he said and smiled and gave the
Gran Maestro his crooked hand.

‘Goodbye, Supreme Commander,’ said the Gran
Maestro and the spell was existent again and almost com¬
plete.

56

& INTO THE TREES

But it was not quite complete and the Colonel knew it
and he thought: why am I always a bastard and why can I
not suspend this trade of arms and be a kind and good man
as I would have wished to be.

I try always to be just, but I am brusque and I am brutal
and it is not that I have erected the defence against brown¬
nosing my superiors and brown-nosing the world. I should
be a better man with less wild boar blood in the small time
which remains. We will try it out tonight, he thought.
With whom, he thought and where, and God help me not
to be bad.

‘Giorgio,’ he said to the barman, who had a face as
white as a leper, but with no bulges and without the silver
shine.

Giorgio did not really like the Colonel very much, or
perhaps he was simply from Piemonte and cared for no
one truly; which was understandable in cold people from
a border province. Borderers are not trusters and the
Colonel knew about this and expected nothing from
anyone that they did not have to give.

‘Giorgio,’ he said to the pale-faced barman. ‘Write
these down for me, please.’

He went out, walking as he had always walked, with a
slightly exaggerated confidence, even when it was not
needed and, in his always renewed plan of being kind,
decent and good, he greeted the concierge, who was a
friend, the assistant manager, who spoke Swahili and had
been a prisoner of war in Kenya and was a most amiable
man, young, full of juice, handsome, perhaps not yet a
member of the Order, and experienced.

‘And the cavaliere ufficiale who manages this place?*
he asked. ‘My friend?’

‘He is not here,’ the assistant manager said. ‘For the
moment, naturally,’ he added.

57

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘Give him my compliments/ the Colonel said. ‘And
have somebody show me to my room.*

‘It is the usual room. You still wish it?*

‘Yes. Have you taken care of the Sergeant?’

‘He is well taken care of.’

‘Good/ said the Colonel.

The Colonel proceeded to his room accompanied by
the boy who carried his bag.

‘This way, my Colonel,’ the boy said, when the elevator
halted with slight hydraulic inaccuracy at the top floor.

‘Can’t you run an elevator properly?’ the Colonel a^ked.

‘No, my Colonel,’ the boy said. ‘The current is not
stable.*

5S

CHAPTER VIII

T h e Colonel said nothing and preceded the boy down
the corridor. It was large, wide and high ceilinged
and there was a long and distinguished interval
between the doors of the rooms on the side of the Grand
Ceinal. Naturally, since it had been a palace, there were
no rooms without excellent views, except those which had
been made for the servants.

llie Colonel found the walk long, although it was a very
short one and when the waiter, who served the room,
appeared, short, dark and with his glass eye in the left eye
socket, gleaming, unable to smile his full, true smile as he
worked the big key in the lock, the Colonel wished that
the door would open more rapidly.

‘Open it up,’ he said.

‘I will, my Colonel,’ the waiter said. ‘But you know
these locks.’

Yes, the Colonel thought. I know them, but I wish that
he would get it open.

‘How arc your family?’ he said to the waiter, who had
swung the door wide so that the Colonel, now entered,
was within the room with the high, dark but well-mirrored
armoire, the two good beds, the great chandelier and the
view, through the still closed windows, on to the wind-
beaten water of the Grand Canal.

The C^anal was grey as steel now in the quick, failing,
winter light and the Colonel said, ‘Arnaldo, open the
windows.’

‘There is much wind, my Colonel, and the room is
badly heated due to the lack of electric power.’

‘Due to the lack of rainfall,’ the Colonel said. ‘Open
the windows. All of them.’

59

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘As you wish, my Colonel.’

The waiter opened the windows and the north wind
came into the room.

‘Please call the desk and ask them to ring this number.’
The waiter made the call while the Colonel was in the
bathroom.

‘The Contessa is not at home, my Colonel,’ he said.
‘They believe you might find her at Harry’s.’

‘You find everything on earth at Harry’s.’

‘Yes, my Colonel. Except, possibly, happiness.’

‘I’ll damn well find happiness, too,’ the Colonel assured
him. ‘Happiness, as you know, is a movable feast.’

‘I am aware of that,’ the waiter said. ‘I have brought
Campari bitters and a bottle of Gordon Gin. May I make
you a Campari with gin and soda?’

‘You’re a good boy,’ the Colonel said. ‘Where did you
bring them from. The bar?’

‘No. I bought them while you were away so that you
would not have to spend money at the bar. The bar is
very costly.’

‘I agree,’ the Colonel agreed. ‘But you should not use
your own money on such a project.’

‘I took a chance. We have both taken many. The gin
was 3200 lire and is legitimate. The Campari was 800.’

‘You’re a very good boy,’ the Colonel told him. ‘How
were the ducks?’

‘My wife still speaks of them. We had never had wild
ducks, since they are of such expense, and outside of our
way of life. But one of our neighbours told her how to
prepare them and these same neighbours ate them with
us. I never knew that anything could be so wonderful to
eat. When your teeth close on the small slice of meat it is
an almost unbelievable delight.’

‘I think so, too. There is nothing lovelier to cat than

60

& INTO THE TREES

those fat iron-curtain ducks. You know their fly-way is
through the great grain fields of the Danube. This is a
splinter flight we have here, but they always come the
same way since before there were shot-guns.’

T know nothing about shooting for sport,’ the waiter
said. ‘We w^ere too poor.’

‘But many people without money shoot in the Veneto.’

‘Yes. Of course. One hears them shoot all night. But
we were poorer than that. We were poorer than you can
know, my Colonel.’

T think I can know.’

‘Perhaps,’ the waiter said. ‘My wife also saved all the
feathers and she asked me to thank you.’

Tf we have any luck day after tomorrow, we’ll get
plenty. The big ducks with the green heads. Tell your
wife, with luck, there will be good eating ducks, fat as
pigs with what they have eaten from the Russians and with
beautiful feathers.’

‘How do you feel about the Russians, if it is not indis¬
creet to ask, my Colonel?’

‘They are our potential enemy. So, as a soldier, I am
prepared to fight them. But I like them very much and I
have never known finer people nor people more as wc arc.’

‘I have never had the good fortune to know them.’

‘You will, boy. You will. Unless the Honourable
Pacciardi stops them on the line of the Piave, which is a
river which no longer contains water. It has been
siphoned off for hydro-electric projects. Perhaps the
Honourable Pacciardi will fight there. But I do not think
he will fight for long.’

‘I do not know the Honourable Pacciardi.’

‘I know him,’ said the Colonel.

‘Now ask them to ring Plarry’s and see if the Contessa
is there. If not, have them ring the house again.’

6i

ACROSS THE RIVER

The Colonel took the drink Arnaldo, the glass-eyed
waiter, made him. He did not want it and he knew that it
was bad for him.

But he took it with his old wild-boar truculence, as he
had taken everything all of his life and he moved, still cat¬
like when he moved, although it was an old cat now, over
to the open window and looked out on the great Canal
which was now becoming as grey as though Degas had
painted it on one of his greyest days.

‘Thanks very much for the drink,’ the Colonel said and
Arnaldo, who was talking into the telephone, nodded and
smiled his glass-eyed smile.

I wish he did not have to have that glass eye, the Colonel
thought. He only loved people, he thought, who had
fought or been mutilated.

Other people were fine and you liked them and were
good friends; but you only felt true tenderness and love
for those who had been there and had received the castiga¬
tion that everyone receives who goes there long enough.

So I’m a sucker for crips, he thought, drinking the un¬
wanted drink. And any son of a bitch who has been hit
solidly, as every man will be if he stays, then I love him.

Yes, his other, good, side said. You love them.

I’d rather not love anyone, the Colonel thought. I’d
rather have fun.

And fun, his good side said to him, you have no fun
when you do not love.

All right. I love more than any son of the great bitch
alive, the Colonel said, but not aloud.

Aloud, he said, ‘Where are you getting on that call,
Arnaldo?’

‘Cipriani has not come in,’ the waiter said. ‘They are
expecting him at any moment and I am keeping the line
open in case he arrives.’

62

& INTO THE TREES

‘A costly procedure,’ the Colonel said. ‘Get me a read¬
ing on who’s there so we don’t waste time. I want to
know exactly who is there.’

Arnaldo spoke guardedly into the mouthpiece of the
telephone.

He covered the mouth of the phone with his hand and
said, ‘I am talking to Ettore. He says the Barone Alvarito
is not there. The Count Andrea is there and he is rather
drunk, Ettore says, but not too drunk for you to have fun
together. The group of ladies that comes in each afternoon
are there and there is a Greek Princess, that you know and
several people that you do not know. Riff-raff from the
American Consulate who have stayed on since noon.'

‘Tell him to call back when the rifl-raff goes and I’ll
come over.’

Arnaldo spoke into the phone, then turned to the
Colonel who was looking out of the window at the Dome
of the Dogana, ‘Ettore says he will try to move them, but
he is afraid Cipriani will not like it.’

‘Tell him not to move them. They don’t have to work
this afternoon and there is no reason why they should not
get drunk like any other man. I just don’t want to see
them.’

‘Ettore says he will call back. He told me to tell you he
thinks the position will fall of its own weight.’

‘Thank him for calling,’ the Colonel said.

He watched a gondola working up the Canal against
the wind and thought, not with Americans drinking. I
know they are bored. In this town, too. They are bored
in this town. I know the place is cold and their wages are
inadequate and what fuel costs. I admire their wives, for
the valiant efforts they make to transport Keokuk to
Venice, and their children already speak Italian like little
Venetians. But no snapshots today. Jack. Today we are

63

ACROSS THE RIVER

giving the snapshots, the bar-room confidences, the un¬
wanted comradely drinks and the tedious woes of the
Consular services a miss.

‘No second, third or fourth vice-consuls today, Arnaldo.’

‘There are some very pleasant people from the Con¬
sulate.’

‘Yeah,’ the Colonel said. ‘They had a hell of a nice
consul here in 1918. Everybody liked him. I’ll try to
remember his name.’

‘You go back a long way back, my Colonel.’

‘I go back so damn far back that it isn’t funny.’

‘Do you remember everything from the old days?’

‘Everything,’ the Colonel said. ‘Carroll was the man’s
name.’

‘I have heard of him.’

‘You weren’t born then.’

‘Do you think it is necessary to have been born at the
time to know about things that have happened in this
town, my Colonel?’

‘You’re perfectly correct. Tell me, does everybody
always know about everything that happens in this
town?’

‘Not everybody. But nearly everybody,’ the waiter
said. ‘After all, sheets are sheets and someone has to
change them and someone has to wash them. Naturally
I do not refer to the sheets in a hotel such as this.’

‘I’ve had some damn good times in my life without
sheets.’

‘Naturally. But the gondoliers, while they are the most
co-operative and, for me, the finest people that we have,
speak among themselves.’

‘Naturally.’

‘Then the clergy. While they would never violate the
secrecy of the confessional, talk among themselves.’

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& INTO THE TREES

Tt is to be expected/

'Their housekeepers talk among themselves/

Tt is their right/

'Then the waiters,’ Arnaldo said. ‘People talk at a
table as though the waiter were stone-deaf. The waiter,
according to his ethics, makes no attempt to ever overhear
a conversation. But sometimes he cannot escape from
hearing. Naturally, we have our own conversations
among ourselves. Never in this hotel of course. I could
go on.’

'I believe I get the point.’

‘Not to mention the coiffeurs and the hair-dressers.’

'And what’s the news from the Rialto now?’

‘You will get it all at Harry’s except the part you figure
in.’

'Do I figure?’

'Everyone knows everything.’

'Well, it’s a damn pleasant story.’

'Some people don’t understand the Torcello part.’

'I’m damned if I do sometimes myself’

'How old are you, my Colonel, if it is not too indiscreet
to ask?’

‘Fifty plus one. Why didn’t you find out from the
concierge? I fill out a slip there for the Questura.’

'I wanted to hear it from you yourself and to con¬
gratulate you.’

'I don’t know what you are talking about.’

'Let me congratulate you anyway.’

'I can’t accept it.’

'You are very well liked in this city.’

‘Thank you. That is a very great compliment.’

Just then the telephone buzzed.

'I’ll take it,’ the Colonel said and heard Ettore’s voice
say, ‘Who speaks?’

E A.R.I.T. 65

ACROSS THE RIVER

""Colonel Cantwell.’

‘The position has fallen, my Colonel.’

‘Which way did they go?’

‘Towards the Piazza.’

‘Good. I will be there at once.’

‘Do you want a table?’

‘In the corner,’ said the Colonel and hung up.

‘I am off for Harry’s.’

‘Good hunting.’

‘I hunt ducks day after tomorrow before first light in a
botte in the marshes.’

‘It will be cold, too.’

‘I dare say,’ the Colonel said and put on his trench coat
and looked at his face in the glass of the long mirror as he
put on his cap.

‘An ugly face,’ he said to the glass. ‘Did you ever see a
more ugly face?*

‘Yes,’ said Arnaldo. ‘Mine. Every morning when I
shave.’

‘We both ought to shav^e in the dark,’ the Colonel told
him and went out the door.

66

CHAPTER IX

A s Colonel Cantwell stepped out of the door of the

ZA Gritti Palace Hotel he came out into the last sunlight
JL Aof that day. There was still sunlight on the opposite
side of the Square but the gondoliers preferred to be
sheltered from the cold wind by lounging in the lee of the
Gritti, than to use the last remaining heat of the sun on
the wind-swept side of the Square.

After noting this, the Colonel turned to the right and
walked along the Square to the paved street which turned
off on the right. As he turned, he stopped for a moment
and looked at the church of Santa Maria del Giglio.

What a fine, compact, and yet ready to be air-borne
building, he thought. I never realized a small church
could look like a P47. Must find out when it was built and
who built it. Damn, I wish I might walk around this
town all my life. All my life, he thought. What a gag that
is. A gag to gag on. A throttle to throttle you with. Come
on, boy, he said to himself. No horse named Morbid ever
won a race.

Besides, he thought, as he looked in the windows of the
various shops he passed, the charcuterie with the Par¬
mesan cheeses and the hams from San Daniele and the
sausages alia cacciaiora and the bottles of good Scotch
whisky and real Gordon’s gin, the cutlery store, an
antique dealer’s with some good pieces and some old
maps and prints, a second-rate restaurant disguised
expensively as one of the first class and then came to the
first bridge crossing a feeder canal with steps to be climbed;
I don’t feel so badly. There is only the buzzing. I
remember when that started and I thought perhaps it
was seven-year locusts in the trees and I did not like to

67

ACROSS THE RIVER

ask young Lowiy^ but I did. And he answered, ‘No,
General, I don’t hear any crickets or seven-year locusts.
The night is perfectly quiet except for the usual noises.’

Then, as he climbed, he felt the twinges and coming
down the other side, he saw two lovely looking girls.
They were beautiful and hatless and poorly but chicly
dressed, and they were talking very fast to each other and
the wind was blowing their hair as they climbed with
their long, easy striding Venetian legs and the Colonel
said to himself. I’d better quit window gazing along this
street and make that next bridge and two squares after¬
wards you turn due right and keep along it till you are in
Harry’s.

He did just that, twinging on the bridge, but walking
with his same old stride and only seeing, quickly, the
people that he passed. There’s a lot of oxygen in this air,
he thought, as he faced into the wind and breathed
deeply.

Then he was pulling open the door of Harry’s bar and
was inside and he had made it again and was at home.

At the bar a tall, very tall, man, with a ravaged face of
great breeding, merry blue eyes and the long, loose-
coupled body of a buffalo wolf said, ‘My ancient and
depraved Colonel.’

‘My wicked Andrea.’

They embraced and the Colonel felt the rough texture
of Andrea’s handsome tweed coat that must have been
entering, at least, its twentieth year.

‘You look well, Andrea,’ the Colonel said.

It was a lie and they both knew it.

‘I am,’ said Andrea, returning the lie. ‘I must say I
never felt better. You look extraordinarily well, yourself.’

‘Thank you, Andrea. Us healthy bastards shall inherit
the earth.’

68

& INTO THE TREES

‘Very good idea. I must say I wouldn’t mind inheriting
something these days.’

‘You have no kick. You’ll inherit well over six feet four
of it.’

‘Six feet six,’ said Andrea. ‘You wicked old man. Are
you still slaving away at la vie militaireV

‘I don’t slave too hard at it,’ the Colonel said. T’m down
to shoot at San Relajo.’

‘I know. But don’t make jokes in Spanish at this hour.
Alvarito was looking for you. He said to tell you he’d be
back.’

‘Good. Is your lovely wife and are the children well?’

‘Absolutely, and they asked me to remember them to
you if I saw you. They’re down in Rome. There comes
your girl. Or one of your girls.’ He was so tall he could
see into the now almost dark street, but this was a girl you
could recognize if it was much darker than it was at this
hour.

‘Ask her to have a drink with us here before you carry
her off to that corner table. Isn’t she a lovely girl?’

‘She is.’

Then she came into the room, shining in her youth and
tall striding beauty and the carelessness the wind had
made of her hair. She had a pale, almost olive-coloured
skin, a profile that could break your, or anyone else’s,
heart and her dark hair, of an alive texture, hung down
over her shoulders.

‘Hello, my great beauty,’ the Colonel said.

‘Oh, oh, hello,’ she said. ‘I thought I would miss you,
I am so sorry to be late.’

Her voice was low and delicate and she spoke English
with caution.

^Ciao, Andrea,’ she said. ‘How is Emily and are the
children?’

69

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘Probably just the same as when I answered that same
question for you at noon.’

‘I am so sorry/ she said and blushed. T am so excited
and I always say the wrong things. What should I say?
Have you had a good time here all afternoon?’

‘Yes/ said Andrea. ‘With my old friend and severest
critic.’

‘Who is that?’

‘Scotch whisky and water.’

‘I suppose if he must tease me he must/ she said to the
Colonel. ‘But you won’t tease me, will you?’

‘Take him over to that corner table and talk to him.
I’m tired of you both.’

‘I’m not tired of you,’ the Colonel told him. ‘But I
think it is a good idea. Should we have a drink sitting
down, Renata?’

‘I’d love to if Andrea isn’t angry.’

‘I’m never angry.’

‘Would you have a drink with us, Andrea?’

‘No,’ said Andrea. ‘Get along to your table. I’m sick
of seeing it unoccupied.’

‘Goodbye, Caro. Thanks for the drink we didn’t have.’

‘Czflo, Ricardo,’ Andrea said and that was all.

He turned his fine, long, tall back on them and looked
into the mirror that is placed behind bars so a man can
tell when he is drinking too much and decided that he did
not like what he saw there. ‘Ettore,’ he said. ‘Please put
this nonsense on my bill.’

He walked out after waiting carefully for his coat,
swinging into it and tipping the man who brought it
exactly what he should be tipped plus twenty per cent.

At the corner table, Renata said, ‘Do you think we hurt
his feelings?’

‘No. He loves you and he likes me.’

70

& INTO THE TREES

‘Andrea is so nice. And you’re so nice.’

‘Waiter,’ the Colonel called; then asked, ‘Do you want
a dry Martini, too?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’d love one.’

‘Two very dry Martinis,’ the Colonel said. ‘Mont¬
gomerys. Fifteen to one.’

The waiter, who had been in the desert, smiled and
was gone and the Colonel turned to Renata.

‘You’re nice,’ he said. ‘You’re also very beautiful and
lovely and I love you.’

‘You always say that and I don’t know what it means
but I like to hear it.’

‘How old are you now?’

‘Nearly nineteen. Why?’

‘And you don’t know what it means?’

‘No. Why should I? Americans always say it to you
before they go away. It seems to be necessary to them.
But I love you very much, too, whatever that is.’

‘Let’s have a fine time,’ the Colonel said. ‘Let’s not
think about anything at all.’

‘I would like that. I cannot think very well this time of
day at any rate.’

‘Here are the drinks,’ the Colonel said. ‘Remember not
to say, chin-chin.’

‘I remember that from before. I never say chin-chin,
nor here’s to you, nor bottoms up.’

‘We just raise the glass to each other and, if you wish,
we can touch the edges.’

‘I wish,’ she said.

The Martinis were icy cold and true Montgomerys and,
after touching the edges, they felt them glow happily all
through their upper bodies.

‘And what have you been doing?’ the Colonel asked.

‘Nothing. I still wait to go away to school.’

V

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘Where now?’

‘God knows. Wherever I go to learn English.’

‘Turn your head and raise your chin once for me.’

‘You’re not making fun?’

‘No. I’m not making fun.’

She turned her head and raised her chin, without
vanity, nor coquetry and the Colonel felt his heart turn
over inside him, as though some sleeping animal had
rolled over in its burrow and frightened, deliciously, the
other anirn il sleeping close beside.

‘Oh you,’ he said. ‘Would you ever like to run for
Queen of Heaven?’

‘That would be sacrilegious.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose it would and I withdraw the
suggestion.’

‘Richard,’ she said. ‘No I can’t say it.’

‘Say it.’

‘No.’

The Colonel thought, I order you to say it. And she
said, ‘Please never look at me like that.’

‘I’m sorry,’ the Colonel said. ‘I had just slipped into
my trade unconsciously.’

‘And if we were such a thing as married would you
practise your trade in the home?’

‘No. I swear it. I never have. Not in my heart.’

‘With no one?’

‘With no one of your sex.’

‘I don’t like that word your sex. It sounds as though
you were practising your trade.’

‘I throw my trade out of that God-damn window into
the Grand Canal.’

‘There,’ she said. ‘You see how quickly you practise it?’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I love you and my trade can
gently leave.’

72

& INTO THE TREES

‘Let me feel your hand,’ she said. ‘It’s all right. You
can put it on the table.’

‘Thank you,’ the Colonel said.

‘Please don’t,’ she said. T wanted to feel it because all
last week, every night, or I think nearly every night, I
dreamed about it and it was a strange mixed-up dream
and I dreamed it was the hand of Our Lord.’

‘That’s bad. You oughtn’t to do that.’

‘I know it. That’s just what I dreamed.’

‘You aren’t on the junk, are you?’

‘I don’t know what you mean and please don’t make
fun when I tell you something true. I dreamed just as I
say.’

‘What did the hand do?’

‘Nothing. Or maybe that is not true. Mostly it was just
a hand.’

‘Like this one?’ The Colonel asked, looking at the mis¬
shapen hand with distaste and remembering the two times
that had made it that way.

‘Not like. It was that one. May I touch it carefully with
my fingers if it does not hurt?’

‘It does not hurt. Where it hurts is in the head, the legs
and the feet. I don’t believe there’s any sensation in that
hand.’

‘You’re wrong,’ she said. ‘Richard. There is very much
sensation in that hand.’

‘I don’t like to look at it much. You don’t think we
could skip it.’

‘Of course. But you don’t have to dream about it.’

‘No. I have other dreams.’

‘Yes. I can imagine. But I dream lately about this
hand. Now that I have touched it carefully, we can talk
about funny things if you like. What is there funny we
should talk about?’

73

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘Let’s look at the people and discuss them.’

‘That’s lovely,’ she said. ‘And we won’t do it with
malice. Only with our best wit. Yours and mine.’

‘Good,’ the Colonel said. ‘Waiter, Ancora due Martini.^

He did not like to call for Montgomerys in a tone that
could be overheard because there were two obvious
Britishers at the next table.

The male might have been wounded, the Colonel
thought, although, from his looks, it seems unlikely. But
God help me to avoid brutality. And look at Renata’s
eyes, he thought. They are probably the most beautiful
of all the beautiful things she has with the longest honest
lashes I have ever seen and she never uses them for any¬
thing except to look at you honestly and straight. What
a damn wonderful girl and what am I doing here anyway?
It is wicked. She is your last and true and only love, he
thought, and that’s not evil. It is only unfortunate. No,
he thought, it is damned fortunate and you are very
fortunate.

They sat at a small table in the corner of the room and
on their right there were four women at a larger table.
One of the women was in mourning; a mourning so
theatrical that it reminded the Colonel of the Lady
Diana Manners playing the nun in Max Reinhardt’s ‘The
Miracle’. This woman had an attractive, plump, natur¬
ally gay face and her mourning was incongruous.

At the table there was another woman who had hair
three times as white as hair can be, the Colonel thought.
She, also, had a pleasant face. There were two other
women whose faces meant nothing to the Colonel.

‘Are they lesbians?’ he asked the girl.

‘I do not know,’ she said. ‘They are all very nice
people.’

‘I should say they are lesbians. But maybe they are

74

& INTO THE TREES

just good friends. Maybe they are both. It means nothing
to me and it was not a criticism.’

‘You are nice when you are gentle.’

‘Do you suppose the word gentleman derives from a
man who is gentle?’

‘I do not know,’ the girl said, and she ran her fingers
very lightly over the scarred hand. ‘But I love you when
you are gentle.’

‘I’ll try very hard to be gentle,’ the Colonel said. ‘Who
do you suppose that son of a bitch is at the table beyond
them?’

‘You don’t stay gentle very long,’ the girl said. ‘Let us
ask Ettore.’

They looked at the man at the third table. He had a
strange face like an over-enlarged, disappointed weasel or
ferret. It looked as pock-marked and as blemished as the
mountains of the moon seen through a cheap telescope
and, the Colonel thought, it looked like Goebbels’s face, if
Herr Goebbels had ever been in a plane that burned and
not been able to bale out before the fire reached him.

Above this face, which was ceaselessly peering, as
though the answer might be found by enough well
directed glances and by queries, there was black hair that
seemed to have no connection with the human race. The
man looked as though he had been scalped and then the
hair replaced. Very interesting, the Colonel thought.
Can he be a compatriot? Yes, he must.

A little spit ran out of the corner of his mouth as he
spoke, peeringly, with the elderly, wholesome looking
woman who was with him. She looks like anybody’s
mother in an illustration in The Ladies^ Home Journal^ the
Colonel thought. The Ladies^ Home Journal was one of the
magazines received regularly at the Officers’ Club in
Trieste and the Colonel looked through it when it came.

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ACROSS THE RIVER

It is a wonderful magazine, he thought, because it com¬
bines sexology and beautiful foods. It makes me hungry
both ways.

But who do you suppose that character is? He looks like
a caricature of an American who has been run one half
way through a meat chopper and then been boiled,
slightly, in oil. I’m not being so gentle, he thought.

Ettore, with his emaciated face and his love of joking
and fundamental and abiding disrespect, came over and
the Colonel said, ‘Who is that spiritual character?’

Ettore shook his head.

The man was short and dark with glossy black hair that
did not seem to go with his strange face. He looked, the
Colonel thought, as though he had forgotten to change his
wig as he grew older. Has a wonderful face though, the
Colonel thought. Looks like some of the hills around
Verdun. I don’t suppose he could be Goebbels and he
picked up that face in the last days when they were all
playing at Gotterdammcrung. KomrfL Siisser Tod^ he
thought. Well they sure bought themselves a nice big
piece of Siisser Tod at the end.

‘You don’t want a nice Siisser Tod sandwich do you
Miss Renata?’

‘I don’t think so,’ the girl said. ‘Though I love Bach
and I am sure Cipriani could make one.’

‘I was not talking against Bach,’ the Colonel said.

‘I know it.’

‘Hell,’ the Colonel said. ‘Bach was practically a co-
belligerent. As you were,’ he added.

‘I don’t think we have to talk against me.’

‘Daughter,’ the Colonel said. ‘When will you learn that
I might joke against you because I love you?’

‘Now,’ she said. ‘I’ve learned it. But you know it’s fun
not to joke too rough.’

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‘Good. Fve learned it.’

‘How often do you think of me during the week?’

‘All of the time.’

‘No. Tell me truly.’

‘All of the time. Truly.’

‘Do you think it is this bad for everyone?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ the Colonel said. ‘That’s one of the
things I would not know.’

‘I hope it’s not this bad for everyone. I had no idea it
could be this bad.’

‘Well you know now.’

‘Yes,’ the girl said. ‘I know now. I know now and for
keeps and for always. Is that the correct way to say it?’

‘I know now is enough,’ the Colonel said. ‘Ettore, that
character with the inspiring face and the nice looking
woman with him doesn’t live at the Gritti does he?’

‘No,’ Ettore said. ‘He lives next door but he goes to the
Gritti sometimes to eat.’

‘Good,’ the Colonel said. ‘It will be wonderful to see
him if I should ever be down-hearted. Who is the woman
with him? His wife? His mother? His daughter?’

‘There you have me,’ Ettore said. ‘We haven’t kept
track of him in Venice. He has aroused neither love, hate,
dislike, fear nor suspicion. Do you really want to know
anything about him? I could ask Cipriani.’

‘Let us skip him,’ the girl said. ‘Is that how you say it?’

‘Let’s skip him,’ the Colonel said.

‘When we have so little time, Richard. He is rather a
waste of time.’

‘I was looking at him as at a drawing by Goya. Faces
are pictures, too.’

‘Look at mine and I will look at yours. Please skip the
man. He didn’t come here to do anyone any harm.’

‘Let me look at your face and you not look at mine.’

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‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s not fair. I have to remember
yours all week.’

‘And what do I do?’ the Colonel asked her.

Ettore came over, unable to avoid conspiracy and,
having gathered his intelligence rapidly and as a Venetian
should, said,

‘My colleague who works at his hotel, says that he
drinks three or four highballs and then writes vastly and
fluently far into the night.’

‘I dare say that makes marvellous reading.’

‘I dare say,’ Ettore said. ‘But it was hardly the method
of Dante.’

‘Dante was another vieux con,' the Colonel said. ‘I
mean as a man. Not as a writer.’

‘I agree,’ Ettore said. ‘I think you will find no one,
outside of Firenze, who has studied his life who would
not agree.’

‘Eff Florence,’ the Colonel said.

‘A difficult manoeuvre,’ Ettore said. ‘Many have at¬
tempted it but very few have succeeded. Why do you
dislike it, my Colonel?’

‘Too complicated to explain. But it was the depot,’
he said deposito, ‘of my old regiment when I was a
boy.’

‘That I can understand. I have my own reasons for
disliking it, too. You know a good town?’

‘Yes,’ said the Colonel. ‘This one. A part of Milano;
and Bologna. And Bergamo.’

‘Cipriani has a large store of vodka in case the Russians
should come,’ Ettore said, loving to joke rough.

‘They’ll bring their own vodka, duty free.’

‘Still I believe Cipriani is prepared for them.’

‘Then he is the only man who is,’ the Colonel said.
‘Tell him not to take any cheques from junior officers on

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& INTO THE TREES

the Bank of Odessa and thank you for the data on my
compatriot. I won’t take more of your time.’

Ettore left and the girl turned towards him and looked
in his old steel eyes and put both her hands on his bad one
and said, ‘You were quite gentle.’

‘And you are most beautiful and I love you.’

‘It’s nice to hear it anyway.’

‘What are we going to do about dinner?’

‘I will have to call my home and find out if I can come
out.’

‘Why do you look sad now?’

‘Do I?’

‘Yes.’

‘I am not, really. I am as happy as I ever am. Truly.
Please believe me, Richard. But how would you like to be
a girl nineteen years old in love with a man over fifty
years old that you knew was going to die?’

‘You put it a little bluntly,’ the Colonel said. ‘But you
are very beautiful when you say it.’

‘I never cry,’ the girl said. ‘Never. I made a rule not
to. But I would cry now.’

‘Don’t cry,’ the Colonel said. ‘I’m gentle now and the
hell with the rest of it.’

‘Say once again that you love me.’

‘I love you and I love you and I love you.’

‘Will you do your best not to die?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did the doctor say?’

‘So-so.’

‘Not worse?’

‘No,’ he lied.

‘Then let us have another Martini,’ the girl said. ‘You
know I never drank a Martini until we met.’

‘I know. But you drink them awfully well.’

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‘Shouldn’t you take the medicine?’

‘Yes,’ the Colonel said. ‘I should take the medicine.’

‘May I give it to you?’

‘Yes,’ the Colonel said. ‘You may give it to me.’

They continued to sit at the table in the corner and some
people went out and others came in. The Colonel felt a
little dizzy from the medicine and he let it ride. That’s the
way it always is, he thought. To hell with it.

He saw the girl watching him and he smiled at her. It
was an old smile that he had been using for fifty years,
ever since he first smiled and it was still as sound as your
grandfather’s Purdey shot-gun. I guess my older brother
has that, he thought. Well, he could always shoot better
than I could and he deserves it.

‘Listen, Daughter,’ he said. ‘Don’t be sorry for me.’

‘I’m not. Not at all. I just love you.’

‘It isn’t much of a trade is it?’ He said qficio instead of
trade, because they spoke Spanish together, too, when they
left French and when they did not wish to speak English
before other people. Spanish is a rough language, the
Colonel thought, rougher than a corncob sometimes. But
you can say what you mean in it and make it stick.

'Es un oficio bastante maloy^ he repeated, ‘loving me.’

‘Yes. But it is the only one I have.’

‘Don’t you write any more poetry?’

‘It was young girl poetry. Like young girl painting.
Everyone is talented at a certain age.’

At what age do you become old in this country, the
Colonel thought. No one is ever old in Venice, but they
grow up very fast. I grew up very rapidly in the Veneto
myself and I was never as old as I was at twenty-one.

‘How is your mother?’ he asked, lovingly.

‘She is very well. She does not receive and she sees
almost no one because of her sorrow.’

8o

& INTO THE TREES

‘Do you think she would mind if wc had a baby?’

‘I don’t know. She is very intelligent, you know. But I
would have to marry someone, I suppose. I don’t really
w^ant to.’

‘We could be married.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I thought it over and I thought we
should not. It is just a decision as the one about crying.’

‘Maybe you make wrong decisions. Christ knows I’ve
made a few and too many men are dead from when I was
wrong.’

‘I think, perhaps, you exaggerate. I don’t believe you
made many wrong decisions.’

‘Not many,’ the Colonel said. ‘But enough. Three is
plenty in my trade and I made all three.’

‘I’d like to know about them.’

‘They’d bore you,’ the Colonel told her. ‘They beat
the hell out of me to remember them. So what would they
do to some outsider?’

‘Am I an outsider?’

‘No. You’re my true love. My last and only and true
love.’

‘Did you make them early or late? The decisions.’

‘I made them early. In the middle. And late.’

‘Wouldn’t you tell me about them? I would like to have
a share in your sad trade.’

‘The hell with them,’ the Colonel said. ‘They were
made and they’ve all been paid for. Only you can’t pay
for that.’

‘Can you tell me about that and why?’

‘No,’ the Colonel said. And that was the end of that.

‘Then let’s have fun.’

‘Let’s,’ the Colonel said. ‘With our one and only
life.’

‘Maybe there are others. Other lives.’

F A.R.I.T. 8i

ACROSS THE RIVER

'I don’t think so,’ the Colonel said. ‘Turn your head
sideways, beauty.’

‘Like this?’

‘Like that,’ the Colonel said. ‘Exactly like that.’

So, the Colonel thought, here we come into the last
round and I do not know even the number of the round. I
have loved but three women and have lost them thrice.

You lose them the same way you lose a battalion; by
errors of judgment; orders that are impossible to fulfil and
through impossible conditions. Also through brutality.

1 have lost three battalions in my life and three women
and now I have a fourth and loveliest and where the hell
does it end?

You tell me, General, and, incidentally, while we are
discussing the matter and it is a frank discussion of the
situation and in no sense a Council of War, as you have so
often pointed out to me General: general where is your

CAVALRY?

I have thought so, he said to himself. The Commanding
Officer does not know where his cavalry is and his cavalry
are not completely accurate as to their situation, nor their
mission and they will, some of them, enough, muck off as
cavalry have always mucked off in all the wars since they,
the Cavalry, had the big horses.

‘Beauty,’ he said, "Ma tres chere el bien aimee, I am very
dull and I am sorry.’

‘You are never dull, to me, and I love you and I only
wish we could be cheerful tonight.’

‘We damn well will be,’ said the Colonel. ‘Do you
know anything particular we should be cheerful about?’

‘We might be cheerful about us, and about the town.
You’ve often been very cheerful.’

‘Yes,’ the Colonel agreed. ‘I have been.’

‘Don’t you think we could do it once more?’

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& INTO THE TREES

‘Sure. Of course. Why not?’

‘Do you see the boy with the wave in his hair, that is
natural, and he only pushes it a little, skilfully, to be
more handsome?’

T see him,’ the Colonel said.

‘He is a very good painter, but he has false teeth in
front because he was a little bit pederaste once and other
pidirastes attacked him one night on the Lido when there
was a full moon.’

‘How old are you?’

‘I will be nineteen.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘I know it from the Gondoliere. This boy is a very good
painter, for now. There aren’t any really good painters
now. But with' false teeth, now, in his twenty-fifth year,
what a thing.’

‘I love you very truly,’ the Colonel said.

‘I love you very truly, too. Whatever that means in
American. I also love you in Italian, against all my judg¬
ment and all of my wishes.’

‘We shouldn’t wish for too God-damn much,’ the
Colonel said. ‘Because we are always liable to get it.’

‘I agree,’ she said, ‘But I would like to get what I wish
for now.’

Neither of them said anything and then the girl said,
‘That boy, he is a man now, of course, and goes with very
many women to hide what he is, painted my portrait
once. You can have it if you like.’

‘Thank you,’ the Colonel said. ‘I would love it.’

‘It is very romantic. My hair is twice as long as it has
ever been and I look as though I were rising from the
sea without the head wet. Actually, you rise from the sea
with the hair very flat and coming to points at the end.
It is almost the look of a very nearly dead rat. But Daddy

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ACROSS THE RIVER

paid him adequately for the portrait, and, while it is not
truly me, it is the way you like to think of me.’

‘I think of you when you come from the sea too.’

‘Of course. Very ugly. But you might like to have this
portrait for a souvenir.’

‘Your lovely mother would not mind?’

‘Mummy would not mind. She would be glad to be rid
of it, I think. We have better pictures in the house.’

‘I love you and your mother both very much.’

‘I must tell her,’ the girl said.

‘Do you think that pock-marked jerk is really a writer?’

‘Yes. If Ettore says so. He loves to joke but he does not
lie. Richard, what is a jerk? Tell me truly.’

‘It is a little rough to state. But I think it means a man
who has never worked at his trade [oficio) truly, and is
presumptuous in some annoying way.’

‘I must learn to use the term properly.’

‘Don’t use it,’ the Colonel said.

Then the Colonel asked, ‘When do I get the portrait?’

‘Tonight if you wish it. I’ll have someone wrap it and
send it from the house. Where will you hang it?’

‘In my quarters.’

‘And no one will come in and make remarks and speak
badly of me?’

‘No. They damn well will not. Also I’ll tell them it is
a portrait of my daughter.’

‘Did you ever have a daughter?’

‘No. I always wanted one.’

‘I can be your daughter as well as everything else.’

‘That would be incest.’

‘I don’t think that would be so terrible in a city as old
as this and that has seen what this city has seen.’

‘Listen, Daughter.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘That was fine. I liked it,’

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& INTO THE TREES

‘All right/ the Colonel said and his voice was thickened
a little. T liked it, too.’

‘Do you see now why I love you when I know better
than to do it?’

‘Look, Daughter. Where should we dine?’

‘Wherever you like.’

‘Would you eat at the Gritti?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then call the house and ask for permission.’

‘No. I decided not to ask permission but to send word
where I was dining. So they would not worry.’

‘But do you really prefer the Gritti?’

‘I do. Because it is a lovely restaurant and it is where
you live and anyone can look at us that wants to.’

‘When did you get like that?’

‘I have always been like that. I have never cared what
anyone thought, ever. Nor have I ever done anything that
I was ashamed of except tell lies when I was a little girl
and be unkind to people.’

‘I wish we could be married and have five sons,’ the
Colonel said.

‘So do 1/ the girl said. ‘And send them to the five
corners of the world.’

‘Are there five corners to the world?’

‘1 don’t know/ she said. ‘It sounded as though there
were when 1 said it. And now we are having fun again,
aren’t we?’

‘Yes, Daughter,’ the Colonel said.

‘Say it again. Just as you said it.’

‘Yes, Daughter.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘People must be very complicated.
Please may I take your hand?’

‘It’s so damned ugly and I dislike looking at it.’

‘You don’t know about your hand.’

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ACROSS THE RIVER

‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ he said. ‘I’d say you were
wrong, Daughter.’

‘Maybe I am wrong. But we’re having fun again and
whatever the bad thing was is gone now.’

‘It’s gone the way the mist is burned off the hollows in
broken ground when the sun comes out,’ the Colonel said.
‘And you’re the sun.’

T want to be the moon, too.’

‘You are,’ the Colonel told her. ‘Also any particular
planet that you wish to be and I will give you an accurate
location of the planet. Christ, Daughter, you can be a God¬
damn constellation if you like. Only that’s an airplane.’

‘I’ll be the moon. She has many troubles too.’

‘Yes. Her sorrows come regularly. But she always fills
before she wanes.’

‘She looks so sad to me sometimes across the Canal, that
I cannot stand it.’

‘She’s been around a long time,’ the Colonel said.

‘Do you think we should have one more Montgomery?’
the girl asked and the Colonel noticed that the British
were gone.

He had been noticing nothing but her lovely face. I’ll
get killed some time that way, he thought. On the other
hand it is a form of concentration I suppose. But it is
damned careless.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Why not?’

‘They make me feel very good,’ the girl said.

‘They have a certain effect on me, too, the way Cipriani
makes them.’

‘Cipriani is very intelligent.’

‘He’s more than that. He’s able.’

‘Some day he’ll own all Venice.’

‘Not quite all,’ the Colonel disagreed. ‘He’ll never
own you.’

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& INTO THE TREES

‘No,’ she said. ‘Nor will anyone else unless you want
me.’

‘I want you, Daughter. But I don’t want to own you.^

‘I know it,’ the girl said. ‘And that’s one more reason
why I love you.’

‘Let’s get Ettore and have him call up your house.
You can tell them about the portrait.’

‘You are quite correct. If you want the portrait tonight,
I must speak to the butler to have it wrapped and sent. I
will also ask to speak to Mummy and tell her where we are
dining and, if you like, I will ask her permission.’

‘No,’ the Colonel said. ‘Ettore, two Montgomerys,
super Montgomerys, with garlic olives, not the big ones,
and please call the home of this lady and let her know
when you have completed the communication. And all
of this as rapidly as possible.’

‘Yes, my Colonel.’

‘Now, Daughter, let us resume the having of the fun.'’

Tt was resumed when you spoke,’ she said.

87

CHAPTER X

T hey were walking, now, along the right side of the
street that led to the Gritti. The wind was at their
backs and it blew the girl’s hair forward. The wind
parted her hair in the back and blevv^ it forward about her
face. They were looking in the shop windows and the girl
stopped in front of the lighted window of a jewellery
shop.

There were many good pieces of old jewellery in the
window and they stood and looked at them and pointed
out the best ones to each other, unclasping their hands to
do so.

Ts there anything you really want? I could get it in
the morning. Cipriani would loan me the money.’

^No,’ she said. T do not want anything but I notice
that you never give me presents.’

‘You are much richer than I am. I bring you small
things from the PX and I buy you drinks and meals.’

‘And take me in gondolas and to lovely places in the
country.’

T never thought you wanted presents of hard stones.’

‘I don’t. It is just the thought of giving and then one
looks at them and thinks about them when they are
worn.’

‘I’m learning,’ the Colonel said. ‘But what could I buy
you on Army pay that would be like your square emeralds?’

‘But don’t you see. I inherited them. They came from
my grandmother, and she had them from her mother who
had them from her mother. Do you think it is the same to
wear stones that come from dead people?’

‘I never thought about it.’

^You can have them if you like, if you like stones. To

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& INTO THE TREES

me they are only something to wear like a dress from
Paris. You don’t like to wear your dress uniform, do
you?’

‘No.’

‘You don’t like to carry a sword, do you?’

‘No, repeat, no.’

‘You are not that kind of a soldier and I am not that
sort of girl. But some time give me something lasting that
I can wear and be happy each time I wear it.’

‘I see,’ the Colonel said. ‘And I will.’

‘You learn fast about things you do not know,’ the girl
said. ‘And you make lovely quick decisions. I would like
you to have the emeralds and you could keep them in
your pocket like a lucky piece, and feel them if you were
lonely.’

‘I don’t put my hands much in my pockets when I’m
working. I usually twirl a stick, or something, or point
things out with a pencil.’

‘But you could put your hand in your pocket only once
in a long time and feel them.’

‘I’m not lonely when I’m working. I have to think too
hard to ever be lonely.’

‘But you are not working now.’

‘No. Only preparing the best way to be overrun.’

‘I’m going to give them to you anyway. I’m quite sure
Mummy will understand. Also I won’t need to tell her
for quite a long time. She keeps no check on my things.
I’m sure my maid would never tell her.’

‘I don’t think I should take them.’

‘You should, please, to give me pleasure.’

‘I’m not sure it’s honourable.’

‘That is like not being sure whether you are a virgin.
What you do to give pleasure to another whom you love
is most honourable.’

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ACROSS THE RIVER

‘All right/ the Colonel said. ‘I will take them for better
or for worse.’

‘Now you say thank you/ the girl said and slipped them
into his pocket as quickly and ably as a jewel thief might.
‘I brought them with me because I have been thinking and
deciding about this all week.’

‘I thought you thought about my hand.’

‘Don’t be surly, Richard. And jyou should never be
stupid. It is your hand you touch them with. Didn’t you
think of that?’

‘No. And I was stupid. What would you like from that
window?’

‘I would like that small Negro with the ebony face and
the turban made of chip diamonds with the small ruby on
the crown of the turban. I should wear it as a pin. Every¬
one wore them in the old days in this city and the faces
were those of their confidential servants. I have coveted
this for a long time, but I wanted you to give it to me.’

‘I’ll send it in the morning.’

‘No. Give it to me when we have lunch before you go.’

‘Right,’ the Colonel said.

‘Now we must walk or we will be too late for dinner.’

They started to walk, arm through arm, and as they
went up the first bridge the wind lashed at them.

When the twinge came, the Colonel said to himself, the
hell with that.

‘Richard/ the girl said. ‘Put your hand in your pocket
to please me and feel them.’

The Colonel did.

‘They feel wonderful/ he said.

90

CHAPTER XI

T hey came in, out of the wind and the cold, through
the main entrance of the Gritti Palace Hotel, into the
light and warmth of the lobby.

‘Good evening, Contessa,’ the concierge said. ‘Good
evening, my Colonel. It must be cold outside.’

‘It is,’ the Colonel said, and did not add any of the
rough or obscene phrases about the extent of the cold, or
the force of the wind, that he could ordinarily have em¬
ployed, for their mutual pleasure when speaking, alone,
with the concierge.

As they entered the long hallway that led to the big
stairs and to the elevator, leaving, on your right, the en¬
trance to the bar, the doorway on to the Grand Canal, and
the entrance to the dining-room, the Gran Maestro came
out of the bar.

He was wearing a formal white jacket, cut long, and
he smiled at them and said, ‘Good evening, my Countess.
Good evening, my Colonel.’

^Gran Maestro^’ the Colonel said.

The Gran Maestro smiled and, still bowing, said, ‘We
are dining in the bar at the far end. There is no one here
now in the vanter time and the dining-room is too big. I
have saved your table. We have a very fine lobster if you
would like him to commence with.’

‘Is he really fresh?’

‘I saw him this morning when he came from the market
in a basket. He was alive and a dark green and completely
unfriendly.’

‘Would you like lobster, Daughter, to start your
dinner?’

The Colonel was conscious of using the word, and so

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ACROSS THE RIVER

was the Gran Maestro^ and so was the girl. But to each one
it meant a different thing.

T wanted to have him for you in case any pescecani came
in. They are down now to gamble at the Lido. I was not
trying to sell him.’

T would love some lobster/ the girl said. ‘Cold, and
with mayonnaise. The mayonnaise rather stiff.’ She said
this in Italian.

Tt isn’t too expensive^’ she said to the Colonel,
seriously.

'Ay hija mia,' the Colonel said.

Teel in your right pocket,’ she said.

T’ll see that he is not too expensive,’ the Gran Maestro
said. ‘Or I’ll buy him myself. I could get him quite
easily with a week’s wages.’

‘Sold to TRUST,’ the Colonel said, this being the code
designation of the task force occupying Trieste. ‘He only
costs me a day’s wages.’

‘Put your hand in your right hand pocket and feel very
rich,’ the girl said.

The Gran Maestro had sensed this was a private joke and
had gone; silently. He was happy about the girl, whom he
respected and admired, and he was happy for his Colonel.

‘I am rich,’ the Colonel said. ‘But if you tease me about
them, I will give them back, and on the linen tablecloth,
and in public.’

He was teasing rough in his turn; throwing in the
counter-attack without even thinking.

‘No you won’t,’ she said. ‘Because you love them
already.’

‘I would take anything I love and throw it off the
highest cliff you ever saw and not wait to hear it bounce.’

‘No, you wouldn’t,’ the girl said. ‘You would not
throw me off any high cliffs.’

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& INTO THE TREES

‘No,’ the Colonel agreed. ‘And forgive me for talking
badly.’

‘You didn’t talk very badly and I didn’t believe it any¬
way,’ the girl told him. ‘Now should I go to the women’s
room to comb my hair and make myself presentable, or
should I come up to your room?’

‘Which do you wish?’

‘To come to your room, of course, and see how you live
and how things are there.’

‘What about the hotel?’

‘Everything is known in Venice anyway. But it is also
known who my family are and that I am a good girl.
Also they know it is you and it is I. We have some credit
to exhaust.’

‘Good,’ the Colonel said. ‘By stairs or elevator?’

‘By elevator,’ she said, and he heard the change in her
voice. ‘You can call a boy or we can run it ourselves’

‘We run it ourselves,’ the Colonel said. ‘I checked out
on elevators long ago.’

It was a good ride with a slight bump, and a rectifica¬
tion at the end, and the Colonel thought: Checked out,
eh? You better be checked out again.

The corridor was now not simply beautiful, but exciting,
and putting the key into the lock was not a simple process,
but a rite.

‘Here it is,’ the Colonel said when he swung the door
open. ‘What there is of it.’

‘It is charming,’ the girl said. ‘But it is awfully cold
with the windows open.’

‘I’ll close them.’

‘No, please. Leave them open if you like it that
way.’

The Colonel kissed her and felt her wonderful, long,
young, lithe and properly built body against his own body,

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which was hard and good, but beat-up, and as he kissed
her he thought of nothing.

They kissed for a long time, standing straight, and kiss¬
ing true, in the cold of the open windows that were on to
the Grand Canal.

‘Oh,’ she said. Then, ‘Oh.’

‘We owe nothing,’ the Colonel said. ‘Not a thing.’

‘Will you marry me and will we have the five sons?’

‘I will! I will!

‘The thing is that, would you?’

‘Of course.’

‘Kiss me once again and make the buttons of your
uniform hurt me but not too much.’

They stood there and kissed each other true. ‘I have a
disappointment for you, Richard,’ she said. ‘I have a
disappointment about everything.’

She said it as a flat statement and it came to the Colonel
in the same way as a message came from one of the three
battalions, when the battalion commander spoke the
absolute truth and told you the worst.

‘You are positive?’

‘Yes.’

‘My poor Daughter,’ he said.

Now there was nothing dark about the word and she
was his daughter, truly, and he pitied her and loved
her.

‘No matter,’ he said. ‘You comb yourself and make
a new mouth and all that, and we will have a good
dinner.’

‘Say once more, first, that you love me and make the
buttons very tight.’

‘I love you,’ the Colonel said quite formally.

Then he whispered into her ear as gently as he knew
how to whisper, as his whisper was when they are fifteen

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feet away and you are a young lieutenant on a patrol, T
love you only, my best and last and only and one true
love.’

‘Good,’ she said, and kissed him hard so he could feel
the sweet salt of the blood inside his lip. And I like that
too, he thought.

‘Now I will comb my hair and make my mouth new
and you can watch me.’

‘Do you want me to shut the windows?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘We will do it all in the cold.’

‘Who do you love?’

‘You,’ she said. ‘And we don’t have too much luck,
do we?’

‘I don’t know,’ the Colonel said. ‘Go ahead and comb
your hair.’

The Colonel went into the bathroom to wash up for
dinner. The bathroom was the only disappointing part of
the room. Due to the exigencies of the Gritti having been
built as a palace, there had been no site for bathrooms at
the time of building, and, later, when they were intro¬
duced, they had been built down the corridor and those
entitled to use them gave due warning beforehand and
water was heated and towels laid out.

This bathroom had been cut, arbitrarily, from a corner
of the room and it was a defensive, rather than an attack¬
ing bathroom, the Colonel felt. Washing, and forced to
look in the mirror to check any traces of lipstick, he
regarded his face.

It looks as though it had been cut out of wood by an
indifferent craftsman, he thought.

He looked at the different welts and ridges that had
come before they had plastic surgery, and at the thin, only
to be observed by the initiate, lines of the excellent plastic
operations after head wounds.

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Well, that is what I have to offer as a gueule or a fagade^
he thought. It is a damn poor offer. The only thing is that
it is tanned, and that takes some of the curse off of it. But,
Christ what an ugly man.

He did not notice the old used steel of his eyes nor the
small, long extending laugh wrinkles at the corners of his
eyes, nor that his broken nose was like a gladiator’s in the
oldest statues. Nor did he notice his basically kind mouth
which could be truly ruthless.

The hell with you, he said to the mirror. You beat-up,
miserable. Should we rejoin the ladies?

He went out from the bathroom into the room, and he
was as young as at his first attack. Every worthless thing
had been left in the bathroom. As always, he thought.
That’s the place for it.

Oil sont les neiges d'antan? Oil sont les neiges d'autrefois?
Dans le pissoir toute la chose comme ga.

The girl, whose first name was Renata, had the doors of
the tall armoire open. They were all mirrored inside and
she was combing her hair.

She was not combing it for vanity, nor to do to the
Colonel what she knew it could and would do. She was
combing it with difficulty and without respect, and, since
it was very heavy hair and as alive as the hair of peasants,
or the hair of the beauties of the great nobility, it was
resistant to the comb.

‘The wind made it very tangled,’ she said. ‘Do you
love me still?’

‘Yes,’ the Colonel said. ‘May I help you?’

‘No, I’ve done it all my life.’

‘You could stand sidewise.’

‘No. All contours are for our five sons and for your
head to rest on.’

‘I was only thinking of the face,’ the Colonel said. ‘But

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thank you for calling my attention. My attention has been
faulty again.’

T am over bold.’

‘No/ the Colonel said. Tn America, they make such
things of wire and of sponge-rubber, such as you use in
the seats of tanks. You never know there, whether there
is any truth in the matter, unless you are a bad boy, as I
am.’

‘Here it is not that way,’ she said, and, with the comb,
swung her now parted hair forward so that it came below
the line of her cheek and, slanting back, hung over her
shoulders.

‘Do you like it neat?’

Tt’s not too neat but it is damn lovely.’

T could put it up and all that sort of thing if you value
neatness. But I cannot manage hairpins and it seems so
silly.’ Her voice was so lovely and it always reminded him
of Pablo Casals playing the ’cello that it made him feel as
a wound does that you think you cannot bear. But you
can bear anything, he thought.

T love you very much the way you are,’ the Colonel
said. ‘And you are the most beautiful woman I have ever
known, or seen, even in paintings by good painters.’

T wonder why the portrait has not come.’

‘The portrait is lovely to have,’ the Colonel said, and
now he was a General again without thinking of it. ‘But
it is like skinning a dead horse.’

‘Please don’t be rough,’ the girl said. ‘I don’t feel at all
like being rough tonight.’

‘I slipped into the jargon of my sale metier"

‘No,’ she said. ‘Please put your arms around me,
gently and well. Please. It is not a dirty trade. It is the
oldest and the best, although most people who practise
it are unworthy.’

G

A.R.I.T.

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He held her as tight as he could without hurting and
she said, T would not have you be a lawyer nor a priest.
Nor sell things. Nor be a great success. I love you to be
in your trade and I love you. Please whisper to me if
you wish.’

The Colonel whispered; holding her tight, and with his
heart broken, honestly and fairly, in his whisper that was
as barely audible as a silent dog whistle heard close to the
ear, T love you, devil. And you’re my daughter, too.
And I don’t care about our losses because the moon is our
mother and our father. And now let’s go down to dinner.’

He whispered this last so low that it was inaudible to
anyone who did not love you.

‘Yes,’ the girl said. ‘Yes. But kiss me once more first.’

9 ^

CHAPTER XII

T hey were at their table in the far corner of the bar,
where the Colonel had both his flanks covered, and
he rested solidly against the corner of the room. The
Gran Maestro knew about this, since he had been an excel¬
lent sergeant in a good company of infantry, in a first-rate
regiment, and he would no more have seated his Colonel
in the middle of a room than he would have taken up a
stupid defensive position.

‘The lobster/ the Gran Maestro said.

The lobster was imposing. He was double the size a
lobster should be, and his unfriendliness had gone with the
boiling, so that now he looked a monument to his dead
self; complete with protruding eyes and his delicate, far-
extended antennae that were for knowing what rather
stupid eyes could not tell him.

He looks a little bit like Georgie Patton, the Colonel
thought. But he probably never cried in his life when he
was moved.

‘Do you think that he will be tough?’ he asked the girl
in Italian.

‘No,’ the Gran Maestro assured them, still bowing with
the lobster. ‘He's truly not tough. He’s only big. You
know the type.’

‘All right,’ the Colonel said. ‘Serve him.’

‘And what will you drink?’

‘What do you want, Daughter?’

‘What you want?’

‘Capri Bianco,’ the Colonel said. ‘Secco and really
cold.’

‘I have it ready,’ said the Gran Maestro,

‘We are having fun,’ the girl said. ‘We are having it

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again and without sorrow. Isn’t he an imposing lobster?’

‘He is,’ the Colonel answered. ‘And he better damn
well be tender.’

‘He will be,’ the girl told him. ‘The Gran Maestro
doesn’t lie. Isn’t it wonderful to have people who do
not lie?’

‘Very wonderful and quite rare,’ the Colonel said. T
w^as thinking just now of a man named Georgie Patton
who possibly never told the truth in his life.’

‘Do you ever lie?’

‘I’ve lied four times. But each time I was very tired.
That’s not an excuse,’ he added.

‘I lied a lot when I was a little girl. But mostly it was
making up stories. Or I hope so. But I have never lied to
my own advantage.’

‘I have,’ said the Colonel. ‘Four times.’

‘Would you have been a general if you had not lied?’

‘If I had lied as others lied, I would have been a three-
star general.’

‘Would it make you happier to be a three-star general?’

‘No,’ said the Colonel. ‘It would not.’

‘Put your right hand, your real hand, in your pocket
once and tell me how you feel.’

The Colonel did so.

‘Wonderful,’ he said, ‘But I have to give them back
you know.’

‘No. Please no.’

‘We won’t go into it now.’

Just then the lobster was served.

It was tender, wath the peculiar slippery grace of that
kicking muscle w^hich is the tail, and the claws were
excellent; neither too thin, nor too fat.

‘A lobster fills with the moon,’ the Colonel told the
girl. ‘When the moon is dark he is not worth eating.’

lOO

& INTO THE TREES

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘I think it may be because, with the full moon, he feeds
all night. Or maybe it is that the full moon brings him
feed.’

‘They come from the Dalmatian coast do they not?’

‘Yes,’ the Colonel said. ‘That’s your rich coast in fish.
Maybe I should say our rich coast.’

‘Say it,’ the girl said. ‘You don’t know how important
things that are said are.’

‘They are a damn sight more important when you put
them on paper.’

‘No,’ the girl said. ‘I don’t agree. The paper means
nothing unless you say them in your heart.’

‘And what if you haven’t a heart, or your heart is
worthless?’

‘You have a heart and it is not worthless,’

I would sure as hell like to trade it in on a new one, the
Colonel thought. I do not see why that one, of all the
muscles, should fail me. But he said nothing of this, and
put his hand in his pocket.

‘They feel wonderful,’ he said. ‘And you look won¬
derful.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘I will remember that all week.’

‘You could always just look in the glass.’

‘The mirror bores me,’ she said. ‘Putting on lipstick
and moving your lips over each other to get it spread
properly and combing your too heavy hair is not a life for
a woman, or even a girl alone, who loves someone. When
you want to be the moon and various stars and live with
your man and have five sons, looking at yourself in the
mirror and doing the artifices of a woman is not very
exciting.’

‘Then let us be married at once.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I had to make a decision about that, as

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ACROSS THE RIVER

about the other different things. All week long is my time
to make decisions.’

T make them too/ the Colonel told her. ‘But I am very
vulnerable on this.’

‘Let’s not talk about it. It makes a sweet hurt, but I
think we would do better to find out what the Gran
Maestro has for meat. Please drink your wine. You
haven’t touched it.’

‘I’ll touch it now,’ the Colonel said. He did and it was
pale and cold like the wines of Greece, but not resinous,
and its body was as full and as lovely as that of Renata.

‘It’s very like you.’

‘Yes. I know. That’s why I wanted you to taste it.’

‘I’m tasting it,’ the Colonel said. ‘Now I will drink a
full glass.’

‘You’re a good man.’

‘Tnank you,’ the Colonel said. ‘I’ll remember that all
week and ti y to be one.’ Then he said, ^Gran Maestro'

When the Gran Maestro came over, happy, conspira¬
torial, and ignoring his ulcers, the Colonel asked him,
‘What sort of meat have you that is worth our eating?’

‘I’m not quite sure I know,’ the Gran Maestro said.
‘But I will check. Your compatriot is over there in hearing
distance. He would not let me seat him in the far corner.’

‘Good,’ the Colonel said. ‘We’ll give him something
to write about.’

‘He writes every night, you know. I’ve heard that from
one of my colleagues at his hotel.’

‘Good,’ the Colonel said. ‘That shows that he is in¬
dustrious even if he has outlived his talents.’

‘We are all industrious,’ the Gran Maestro said.

‘In different ways.’

‘I will go and check on what there actually is among
the meats.’

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& INTO THE TREES

‘Check carefully.’

T am industrious.’

‘You are also damn sagacious.’

The Gran Maestro was gone and the girl said, ‘He is a
lovely man and I love how fond he is of you.’

‘We are good friends,’ the Colonel said. T hope he has
a good steak for you.’

‘There is one very good steak,’ the Gran Maestro said,
reappearing.

‘You take it, Daughter. I get them all the time at the
mess. Do you want it rare?’

‘Quite rare, please.’

‘Al sangue^"" the Colonel said, ‘as John said when he
spoke to the waiter in French. Crudo, bleu^ or just make
it very rare.’

‘It’s rare,’ the Gran Maestro said. ‘And you, my Colonel?’

‘The scaloppine with Marsala, and the cauliflower
braised with butter. Plus an artichoke vinaigrette if you
can find one. What do you want, Daughter?’

‘Mashed potatoes and a plain salad.’

‘You’re a growing girl.’

‘Yes. But I should not grow too much nor in the wrong
directions.’

‘I think that handles it,’ the Colonel said. ‘What about
a fiasco of \ alpolicella?’

‘We don’t have fiascos. This is a good hotel, you know.
It comes in bottles.’

‘I forgot,’ the Colonel said. ‘Do you remember when
it cost thirty centesimi the litre?’

‘And we would throw the empty fiascos at the station
guards from the troop trains?’

‘And we would throw all the left over grenades away
and bounce them down the hillside coming back from
the Grappa?’

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‘And they would think there was a break-through when
they would see the bursts and you never shaved, and we
wore the fiamme nere on the grey, open jackets with the
grey sweaters?’

‘And I drank grappa and could not even feel the taste?’

‘We must have been tough then,’ the Colonel said.

‘We were tough then,’ the Gran Maestro said. ‘We were
bad boys then, and you were the worst of the bad boys.’

‘Yes,’ the Colonel said. ‘I think we were rather bad
boys. You forgive this will you. Daughter?’

‘You haven’t a picture of then, have you?’

‘No. There weren’t any pictures except with Mr.
d’Annunzio in them. Also most of the people turned out
badly.’

‘Except for us,’ the Gran Maestro said. ‘Now I must go
and see how the steak marches.’

The Colonel, who was a sub-lieutenant again now,
riding in a camion, his face dust, until only his metallic
eyes showed, and they were red-rimmed and sore, sat
thinking.

The three key points, he thought. The massif of Grappa
with Assalone and Pertica and the hill I do not remember
the name of on the right. That was where I grew up, he
thought, and all the nights I woke sweating, dreaming I
would not be able to get them out of the trucks. They
should not have gotten out, ever, of course. But what a
trade it is.

‘In our army, you know,’ he told the girl, ‘practically
no Generals have ever fought. It is quite strange and the
top organization dislikes those who have fought.’

‘Do Generals really fight?’

‘Oh yes. When they are captains and lieutenants.
Later, except in retreats, it is rather stupid.’

‘Did you fight much? I know you did. But tell me.’

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& INTO THE TREES

T fought enough to be classified as a fool by the great
thinkers.’

‘Tell me.’

‘When I was a boy, I fought against Erwin Rommel
half way from Cortina to the Grappa, where we held. He
was a captain then and I was an acting captain; really a
sub-lieutenant.’

‘Did you know him?'

‘No. Not until after the war when we could talk
together. He was very nice and I liked him. We used
to ski together.’

‘Did you like many Germans?’

‘Very many. Ernst Udet I liked the best.’

‘But they were in the wrong.’

‘Of course. But who has not been?’

‘I never could like them or take such a tolerant attitude
as you do, since they killed my father and burned our
villa on the Brenta and the day I saw a German officer
shooting pigeons with a shotgun in the Piazza San Marco.’

‘I understand,’ the Colonel said. ‘But please. Daughter,
you try to understand my attitude too. When we have
killed so many we can afford to be kind.’

‘How many have you killed?’

‘One hundred and twenty-two sures. Not counting
possibles.’

‘You had no remorse?’

‘Never.’

‘Nor bad dreams about it?’

‘Nor bad dreams. But usually strange ones. Combat
dreams, always, for a while after combat. But then strange
dreams about places mostly. We live by accidents of
terrain, you know. And terrain is what remains in the
dreaming part of your mind.’

‘Don’t you ever dream about me?’

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‘I try to. But I can’t.’

‘Maybe the portrait will help.’

T hope so,’ the Colonel said. ‘Please don’t forget to
remind me to give back the stones.’

‘Please don’t be cruel.’

‘I have my small necessities of honour in the same pro¬
portions as we have our great and enveloping love. You
cannot have the one without the other.’

‘But you could give me privileges.’

‘You have them,’ the Colonel said. ‘The stones are in
my pocket.’

The Gran Maestro came then with the steak and the
scaloppine and the vegetables. They were brought by a
sleek-headed boy who believed in nothing; but was trying
hard to be a good second waiter. He was a member of the
Order. The Gran Maestro served adroitly and with respect
both for the food, and those that were to eat it.

‘Now eat,’ he said.

‘Uncork that Valpolicella,’ he said to the boy who had
the eyes of an unbelieving spaniel.

‘What do you have on that character?’ the Colonel
asked him, referring to his pitted compatriot, sitting chaw¬
ing at his food, while the elderly w^oman with him ate with
suburban grace.

‘You should tell me. Not me you.’

‘I never saw him before today” the Colonel said. ‘He’s
hard to take with food.’

‘He condescends to me. He speaks bad Italian assidu¬
ously. He goes everywhere in Baedeker, and he has no
taste in either food or wine. The woman is nice. I believe
she is his aunt. But I have no real information.’

‘He looks like something we could do without.’

‘I believe we could. In a pinch.’

‘Does he speak of us?’

io6

& INTO THE TREES

‘He asked me who you were. He was familiar with the
Contessa’s name and had book-visited several palaces that
had belonged to the family. He was impressed by your
name, Madam, which I gave to impress him.’

‘Do you think he will put us in a book?’

‘Fm sure of it. He puts everything in a book.’

‘We ought to be in a book,’ the Colonel said. ‘Would
you mind, Daughter?’

‘Of course not,’ the girl said. ‘But I’d rather Dante
wrote it.’

‘Dante isn’t around,’ the Colonel said.

‘Can you tell me anything about the war?’ the girl
asked. ‘Anything that I should be permitted to know?’

‘Sure. Anything you like.’

‘What was General Eisenhower like?’

‘Strictly the Epworth League. Probably that is unjust
too. Also complicated by various other influences. An
excellent politician. Political General. Very able at it.’

‘The other leaders?’

‘Let us not name them. They’ve named themselves
enough in their memoirs. Mostly extremely plausible out
of something called the Rotary Club that you would never
have heard of. In this club, they have enamelled buttons
with their first names and you are fined if you call them
by their pro])er names. Never fought. Ever.’

‘Were there no good ones?’

‘Yes, many. Bradley, the schoolmaster, and many others.
Give you Lightning Joe as a good one. Very good.’

‘Who was he?’

‘Commanded the Seventh Corps when I was there.
Very sound. Rapid. Accurate. Now chief of staff.’

‘But what about the great leaders we heard about like
the Generals Montgomery and Patton?’

‘Forget them, Daughter. Monty was a character who

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needed fifteen to one to move, and then moved tardily.’

T always supposed he was a great General.’

‘He was not,’ the Colonel said. ‘The worst part was he
knew it. I have seen him come into an hotel and change
from his proper uniform into a crowd-catching kit to go
out in the evening to animate the populace.’

‘Do you dislike him?’

‘No. I simply think he is a British General. Whatever
that means. And don’t you use the term.’

‘But he beat General Rommel.’

‘Yes. And you don’t think anyone else had softened
him up? And who can’t win with fifteen to one? When
we fought here, when we were boys, the Gran Maestro and
I, we won for one whole year with three to four against
one and we won each one. Three main bad ones. That
is why we can make jokes and not be solemn. We had
something over one hundred and forty thousand dead
that year. That is why we can speak gaily and without
pomposity.’

‘It is such a sad science; if it is a science,’ the girl said.
T hate the war monuments, though I respect them.’

‘I do not like them either. Nor the process which led
to their construction. Have you ever seen that end of
the thing?’

‘No. But I would like to know.’

‘Better not know,’ the Colonel said. ‘Eat your steak
before it gets cold and forgive me for talking about my trade.’

‘I hate it but I love it’.

T believe we share the same emotions,’ the Colonel
said. ‘But what is my pitted compatriot thinking three
tables down?’

‘About his next book, or about what it says in Baedeker.’

‘Should we go and ride in a gondola in the wind after
we have dined?’

io8

& INTO THE TREES

‘That would be lovely.’

‘Should we tell the pitted man that we are going? I
think he has the same pits on his heart and in his soul and
maybe in his curiosity.’

‘We tell him nothing,’ the girl said. ‘The Gran Maestro
can convey him any information we wish.’

Then she chewed well and solidly on her steak and
said, ‘Do you think it is true that men make their own
faces after fifty. ’

‘I hope not. Because I would not sign for mine.’

‘You,’ she said. ‘You.’

‘Is the steak good?’ the Colonel asked.

‘It’s wonderful. How are your scaloppine?’

‘Very tender and the sauce is not at all sweet. Do you
like the vegetables?’

‘The cauliflower is almost crisp; like celery.’

‘We should have some celery. But I don’t think there
is any or the Gran Maestro would have brought it.’

‘Don’t we have fun with food? Imagine if we could
eat together always.’

‘I’ve suggested it.’

‘Let’s not talk about that.’

‘All right,’ the Colonel said. ‘I’ve made a decision too.
I’m going to chuck the army and live in this town, very
simply, on my retirement pay.’

‘That’s wonderful. How do you look in civilian
clothes?’

‘You’ve seen me.’

‘I know it, my dear. I said it for a joke. You make
rough jokes sometimes too, you know.’

‘I’ll look all right. That is if you have a tailor here who
can cut clothes.’

‘There isn’t one here, but there is in Rome. Can we
drive together to Rome to get the clothes?’

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‘Yes. And we will live outside the town at Viterbo and
only go in for the fittings and for dinner in the evening.
Then we’ll drive back in the night.’

‘Will we see cinema people and speak about them with
candour and perhaps not have a drink with them?’

‘We’ll see them by the thousands.’

‘Will we see them being married for the second and
third time and then being blessed by the Pope?’

‘If you go in for that kind of thing.’

‘I don’t,’ the girl said. ‘That’s one reason that I cannot
marry you.’

‘I see,’ the Colonel said. ‘Thank you,’

‘But I will love you, whatever that means, and you and
I know what it means very well, as long as either of us is
alive and after.’

‘I don’t think you can love very much after you, your¬
self, are dead,’ the Colonel said.

He started to eat the artichoke taking a leaf at a time,
and dipping them, heavy side down, into the deep saucer
of sauce vinaigrette,

‘I don’t know whether you can either,’ the girl said.
‘But I will try. Don’t you feel better to be loved?’

‘Yes,’ the Colonel said. ‘I feel as though I were out on
some bare-assed hill where it was too rocky to dig, and the
rocks all solid, but with nothing jutting, and no bulges,
and all of a sudden instead of being there naked, I was
armoured. Armoured and the eighty-eights not there.’

‘You should tell that to our writer friend with the
craters of the moon face so he could write it tonight.’

‘I ought to tell it to Dante if he was around,’ the
Colonel, suddenly gone as rough as the sea when a line
squall comes up, said. ‘I’d tell him what I’d do if I were
shifted, or ascended, into an armoured vehicle under such
circumstances.’

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& INTO THE TREES

Just then the Barone Alvarito came into the dining¬
room. He was looking for them and, being a hunter, he
saw them instantly.

He came over to the table and kissed Renata’s hand,
saying, ^Ciao^ Renata.’ He was almost tall, beautifully
built in his town clothes, and he was the shyest man the
Colonel had ever known. He was not shy from ignorance,
nor from being ill at ease, nor from any defect. He was
basically shy, as certain animals are, such as the Bongo
that you will never see in the jungle, and that must be
hunted with dogs.

‘My Colonel,’ he said. He smiled as only the truly shy
can smile.

It was not the easy grin of the confident, nor the quick
slashing smile of the extremely durable and the wicked.
It had no relation with the poised, intently used smile of
the courtesan or the politician. It was the strange, rare
smile which rises from the deep, dark pit, deeper than a
well, deep as a deep mine, that is within them.

T can only stay a moment. I came to tell you that it
looks quite good for the shoot. The ducks are coming in
heavily from the north. There are many big ducks. The
ones you like,’ he smiled again.

‘Sit down, Alvarito. Please.’

‘No,’ the Barone Alvarito said. ‘We can meet at the
garage at two-thirty if you like? You have your car?’

‘Yes.’

‘That makes it very' good. Leaving at that hour, we
will have time to see the ducks in the evening.’

‘Splendid,’ the Colonel said.

'Ciao, then, Renata. Goodbye, my Colonel. Until two-
thirty.’

‘We knew each other as children,’ the girl said. ‘But he
was about three years older. He was born very old.’

Ill

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘Yes. I know. He is a good friend of mine.’

‘Do you think your compatriot has looked him up in
Baedeker?’

‘I wouldn’t know/ the Colonel said. 'Gran Maestro^ he
asked, ‘did my illustrious compatriot look up the Barone
in Baedeker?’

‘Truly, my Colonel. I have not seen him pull his
Baedeker during the meal.’

‘Give him full marks,’ the Colonel said. ‘Now look. I
believe that the Valpolicella is better when it is newer. It
is not a grand vin and bottling it and putting years on it
only adds sediment. Do you agree?’

‘I agree.’

‘Then what should we do?’

‘My Colonel, you know that in a Great Hotel, wine
must cost money. You cannot get Pinard at the Ritz.
But I suggest that we get several fiascos of the good. You
can say they come from the Contessa Renata’s estates and
are a gift. Then I will have them decanted for you. This
way, we will have better wine and make an impressive
saving. I will explain it to the manager if you like. He
is a very good man.’

‘Explain it to him,’ the Colonel said. ‘He’s not a man
who drinks labels either.’

‘Agreed.’

‘In the meantime you might as well drink this. It is
very good you know.’

‘It is,’ the Colonel said. ‘But it isn’t Chambertin.’

‘What did we use to drink?’

‘Anything,’ the Colonel said. ‘But now I seek perfec¬
tion. Or, rather, not absolute perfection, but perfection
for my money.’

‘I seek it, too,’ the Gran Maestro said. ‘But rather
vainly.’

12

& INTO THE TREES

‘What do you want for the end of the meal?’

‘Cheese,’ the Colonel said. ‘What do you want,
Daughter?’

The girl had been quiet and a little withdrawn, since
she had seen Alvarito. Something was going on in her
mind, and it was an excellent mind. But, momentarily,
she was not with them.

‘Cheese,’ she said. ‘Please.’

‘What cheese?’

‘Bring them all and we’ll look at them,’ the Colonel
said.

The Gran Maestro left and the Colonel said, ‘What’s the
matter, Daughter?’

‘Nothing. Never anything. Always nothing.’

‘You might as well pull out of it. We haven’t time for
such luxuries.’

‘No. I agree. We will devote ourselves to the cheese.’

‘Do I have to take it like a corn cob?’

‘No,’ she said, not understanding the colloquialism, but
understanding exactly what was meant, since it was she
who had been doing the thinking. ‘Put your right hand
in your pocket.’

‘Good,’ the Colonel said. ‘I will.’

He put his right hand in his pocket and felt what was
there, first with the tips of his fingers, and then with the
insides of his fingers, and then with the palm of his hand;
his split hand.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘And now w^e begin the good part
of it again. We will dedicate ourselves to the cheese with
happiness.’

‘Excellent,’ the Colonel said. ‘I w'onder what cheeses
he has?’

‘Tell me about the last w^ar,’ the girl said. ‘Then we
will ride in our gondola in the cold wind.’

H A.R.i.T. 113

ACROSS THE RIVER

Tt was not very interesting,’ the Colonel said. ‘To us,
of course, such things are always interesting. But there
were only three, maybe four, phases that really interested
me.’

‘Why?’

‘We were fighting a beaten enemy whose communica¬
tions had been destroyed. We destroyed many divisions on
paper, but they were ghost divisions. Not real ones. They
had been destroyed by our tactical aviation before they
ever got up. It was only really difficult in Normandy, due
to the terrain, and when we made the break for Georgie
Patton’s armour to go through and held it open on both
sides.’

‘How do you make a break for armour to go through?
Tell me, please.’

‘First you fight to take a town that controls all the main
roads. Call the town St. Lo. Then you have to open up
the roads by taking other towns and villages. The enemy
has a main line of resistance, but he cannot bring up his
divisions to counter-attack because the fighter-bombers
catch them on the roads. Does this bore you? It bores the
hell out of me.’

‘It docs not bore me. I never heard it said understand¬
ably before.’

‘Thank you,’ the Colonel said. ‘Are you sure you want
more of the sad science?’

‘Please,’ she said. ‘I love you, you know, and I would
like to share it with you.’

‘Nobody shares this trade with anybody,’ the Colonel
told her. ‘I’m just telling you how it works. I can insert
anecdotes to make it interesting, or plausible.’

‘Insert some, please.’

‘The taking of Paris was nothing,’ the Colonel said. ‘It
was only an emotional experience. Not a military opera-

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& INTO THE TREES

tion. We killed a number of typists and the screen the
Germans had left, as they always do, to cover their with¬
drawal. I suppose they figured they were not going to
need a hell of a lot of office workers any more and they
left them as soldiers.’

‘Was it not a great thing?’

‘The people of Leclerc, another jerk of the third or
fourth water, whose death I celebrated with a magnum of
Perrier-Jouet Brut 1942, shot a great number of rounds
to make it seem important and because we had given them
what they had to shoot with. But it was not important.’

‘Did you take part in it?’

‘Yes,’ the Colonel said. ‘I think I could safely say, yes.’

‘Did you have no great impressions of it? After all, it
was Paris and not everyone has taken it.’

‘The French, themselves, had taken it four days before.
But the grand plan of what we called SHAEF, Supreme,
get that word, Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary
Forces, which included all the military politicians of the
rear, and who wore a badge of shame in the form of a
flaming something, while we wore a four-leafed clover as
a designation, and for luck, had a master plan for the
envelopment of the city. So we could not simply take it.

‘Also we had to wait for the possible arrival of General
or Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery who was
unable to close, even, the gap at Falaise and found the
going rather sticky and could not quite get there on
time.’

‘You must have missed him,’ the girl said.

‘Oh, we did,’ the Colonel said. ‘No end.’

‘But was there nothing noble or truly happy about it?’

‘Surely,’ the Colonel told her. ‘We fought from Bas
Meudon, and then the Porte de Saint Cloud, through
streets I knew and loved and we had no deads and did as

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little damage as possible. At the Etoile I took Elsa Max¬
well’s butler prisoner. It was a very complicated opera¬
tion. He had been denounced as a Japanese sniper. A
new thing. Several Parisians were alleged to have been
killed by him. So we sent three men to the roof where he
had taken refuge and he was an Indo-China boy.’

T begin to understand a little. But it is disheartening.’

‘It is always disheartening as hell. But you are not sup¬
posed to have a heart in this trade.’

‘But do you think it was the same in the time of the
Grand Captains?’

‘I am quite sure it was worse.’

‘But you got your hand honourably?’

‘Yes. Very honourably. On a rocky, bare-assed hill.’

‘Please let me feel it,’ she said.

‘Just be careful around the centre,’ the Colonel said.
‘It’s split there and it still cracks open.’

‘You ought to write,’ the girl said. ‘I mean it truly. So
someone would know about such things.’

‘No,’ the Colonel disagreed. ‘I have not the talent for
it and I know too much. Almost any liar writes more
convincingly than a man who was there.’

‘But other soldiers wrote.’

‘Yes. Maurice de Saxe. Frederick the Great. Mr.
T’sun Su.’

‘But soldiers of our time.’

‘You use the word our with facility. I like it though.’

‘But didn’t many modern soldiers write?’

‘Many. But did you ever read them?’

‘No. I have read mostly the classics and I read the
illustrated papers for the scandals. Also, I read your
letters.’

‘Burn them,’ the Colonel said. ‘They are worthless.’

‘Please. Don’t be rough.’

ii6

& INTO THE TREES

T won’t. What can I tell you that won’t bore you?’

‘Tell me about when you were a General.’

‘Oh, that,’ he said and motioned to the Gran Maestro
to bring champagne. It was Roederer Brut ’42 and he
loved it.

‘When you are a General you live in a trailer and your
Chief of Staff lives in a trailer, and you have bourbon
whisky when other people do not have it. Your Gs live in
the C.P. I’d tell you what Gs are, but it would bore you.
I’d tell you about Gi, G2, G3, G4, G5 and on the other
side there is always Kraul-6. But it would bore you. On
the other hand, you have a map covered with plastic
material, and on this you have three regiments composed
of three battalions each. It is all marked in coloured
pencil.

‘You have boundary lines so that when the battalions
cross their boundaries they will not then fight each other.
Each battalion is composed of five companies. All should
be good, but some are good, and some are not so good.
Also you have divisional artillery and a battalion of tanks
and many spare parts. You live by co-ordinates.’

He paused while the Gran Maestro poured the Roederer
Brut ’42.

‘From Corps,’ he translated, unlovingly, cuerpo d'Arrnata^
‘they tell you what you must do, and then you decide
how to do it. You dictate the orders or, most often, you
give them by telephone. You ream out people you respect,
to make them do what you know is fairly impossible, but
is ordered. Also, you have to think hard, stay awake late
and get up early.’

‘And you won’t write about this? Not even to please
me ’

‘No,’ said the Colonel. ‘Boys who were sensitive and
cracked and kept all their valid first impressions of their

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ACROSS THE RIVER

day of battle, or their three days, or even their four, write
books. They are good books but can be dull if you have
been there. Then others write to profit quickly from the
war they never fought in. The ones who ran back to tell
the news. The news is hardly exact. But they ran quickly
with it. Professional writers who had jobs that prevented
them from fighting wrote of combat that they could not
understand, as though they had been there. I do not know
what category of sin that comes under.

‘Also a nylon-smooth captain of the Navy who could
not command a cat-boat wrote about the intimate side of
the truly Big Picture. Every^body will write their book
sooner or later. We might even draw a good one. But I
don’t write. Daughter.’

He motioned for the Gran Maestro to fill the glasses.

'Gran Maestro^' he said. ‘Do you like to fight?’

‘No.’

‘But we fought?’

‘Yes. Too much.’

‘How is your health?’

‘Wonderful except for the ulcers and a small cardiac
condition.’

‘No,’ the Colonel said, and his heart rose and he felt it
choke him. ‘You only told me about the ulcers.’

‘Well, you know now,’ the Gran Maestro said and did
not finish the sentence and he smiled his best and clearest
smile that came as solid as the sun rises.

‘How many times?’

The Gran Maestro held up two fingers as a man might
do giving odds where he had credit, and all the betting
was on the nod.

‘I’m ahead of you,’ the Colonel said. ‘But let’s not be
macabre. Ask Donna Renata if she wishes more of this
excellent wine.’

ii8

& INTO THE TREES

‘You did not tell me there were more/ the girl said.
‘You owe it to me to tell me.’

‘There has been nothing since we were together last.’

‘Do you think it breaks for me? If so, I would come and
simply be with you and care for you.’

‘It’s just a muscle,’ the Colonel said. ‘Only it is the main
muscle. It works as perfectly as a Rolex Oyster Perpetual.
The trouble is you cannot send it to the Rolex representa¬
tive when it goes wrong. When it stops, you just do not
know the time. You’re dead.’

‘Don’t please talk about it.’

‘You asked me,’ the Colonel said.

‘And that pitted man with the caricature face? He has
no such thing?’

‘Of course not,’ the Colonel told her. ‘If he is a mediocre
writer he will live for ever.’

‘But you’re not a writer. How do you know this?’

‘No,’ the Colonel said. ‘By the grace of God. But I’ve
read several books. We have a lot of time to read when
we are unmarried. Not as much as the merchant marine
maybe. But plenty. I can tell one writer from another and
I tell you that a mediocre writer has a long span of life.
They ought to all draw longevity pay.’

‘Could you tell me any anecdotes, and we stop talking
about this, which is my true sorrow?’

‘I can tell you hundreds of them. All true.’

‘Tell me just one. Then we will finish this wine and
then go in the gondola.’

‘Do you think you will be warm enough?’

‘Oh, I’m sure I will.’

‘I don’t know what to tell you,’ the Colonel said.
‘Everything about war bores those who have not made it.
Except the tales of the liars.’

‘I would like to know about the taking of Paris.’

”9

ACROSS THE RIVER

^Why? Because I told you that you looked like Marie
Antoinette in the tumbril?’

‘No. I was complimented by that and I know we are
a little alike in profile. But I have never been in any tum¬
bril, and I would like to hear about Paris. When you love
someone and he is your hero, you like to hear about the
places and the things.’

‘Please turn your head,’ the Colonel said, ‘and I will
tell you. Gran Maestro is there any more in that wretched
bottle?’

‘No,’ the Gran Maestro answered.

‘Then bring another.’

‘I have one already iced.’

‘Good. Serve it. Now, Daughter, we parted from the
column of the General Leclerc at Clamart. They went to
Montrouge and the Porte d’Orleans and we went directly
to Bas Meudon and secured the bridge of the Porte de
Saint Cloud. Is this too technical and does it bore you?’
‘No.’

‘It would be better with a map.’

‘Go on.’

‘We secured the bridge and established a bridgehead
on the other side of the river and we threw the Germans,
living and dead, who had defended the bridge, into the
Seine River,’ he stopped. ‘It was a token defence of
course. They should have blown it. We threw all these
Germans into the River Seine. They were nearly all
office workers, I believe.’

‘Go on.’

‘The next morning, we were informed that the Germans
had strong points at various places, and artillery on Mount
Valcrien, and that tanks were roaming the streets. A
portion of this was true. We were also requested not to
enter too rapidly as the General Leclerc was to take the

120

& INTO THE TREES

city. I complied with this request and entered as slowly
as I could.’

'How do you do that?’

'You hold up your attack two hours and you drink
champagne whenever it is offered to you by patriots,
collaborators or enthusiasts.’

'But was there nothing wonderful nor great, the way it
is in books?’

'Of course. There was the city itself. The people were
very happy. Old general officers were walking about in
their moth-balled uniforms. We were very happy, too,
not to have to fight.’

'Did you not have to fight at all?’

‘Only three times. Then not seriously.’

'But was that all you had to fight to take such a city?’

'Daughter, we fought twelve times from Rambouillet
to enter the city. But only two of them were worth
describing as fights. Those at Toussus le Noble and at
Le Buc. The rest was the necessary garnishing of a dish.
I really did not need to fight at all except at those two
places.’

'Tell me some true things about fighting.’

'Tell me you love me.’

'I love you,’ the girl said. ‘You can publish it in the
Gazzettina if you like. I love your hard, flat body and
your strange eyes that frighten me when they become
wicked. I love your hand and all your other wounded
places.’

'I better try to tell you something pretty good,’ the
Colonel said. ‘First I can tell you that I love you Period.’

‘Why don’t you buy some good glass?’ the girl asked,
suddenly. 'We could go to Murano together.’

‘I don’t know anything about glass.’

'I could teach you. It would be fun.’

I 2 I

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘We lead too nomadic a life for good glass.’

‘But when you retire and live here.’

‘We’ll get some then.’

‘I wish that that was now.’

‘So do I, except that I go duck shooting tomorrow and
that tonight is tonight.’

‘Can I come duck shooting?’

‘Only if Alvarito asks you.’

‘I can make him ask me.’

‘I doubt that.’

‘It isn’t polite to doubt what your daughter says when
she is old enough not to lie.’

‘All right, Daughter. I withdraw the doubt.’

‘Thank you. For that I will not go and be a nuisance.
I will stay in Venice and go to Mass with Mother and
my aunt and my great-aunt and visit my poors. I am an
only child so I have many duties.’

‘I always wondered what you did.’

‘That’s what I do. Also, I’ll have my maid wash my
head and give me a manicure and a pedicure.’

‘You can’t do that because the shoot is on Sunday.’

‘Then I’ll do that on Monday. On Sunday, I will read
all the illustrated papers including the outrageous ones.’

‘Maybe they’ll have pictures of Miss Bergman. Do you
still want to be like her?’

‘Not any more,’ the girl said. ‘I want to be like me
only much, much better and I want to have you love me.’

‘Also,’ she said suddenly and un-maskingly, ‘I want to
be like you. Can I be like you a little while tonight?’

‘Of course,’ the Colonel said. ‘In what town are we
anyway?’

‘Venice,’ she said. ‘The best town, I think.’

‘I quite agree. And thank you for not asking me for
more war episodes.’

122

& INTO THE TREES

‘Oh, you are going to have to tell them to me later.’

"Have to?' the Colonel said and the cruelty and resolu¬
tion showed in his strange eyes as clearly as when the
hooded muzzle of the gun of a tank swings towards you.

‘Did you say have to^ Daughter?’

‘I said it. But I did not mean it in that way. Or, if I
did wrong, I am sorry. I meant will you please tell me
more true episodes later? And explain me the things I
do not understand?’

‘You can use have to if you want, Daughter. The hell
with it.’

He smiled and his eyes were as kind as they ever were,
which was not too kind, as he knew. But there was
nothing now that he could do about it except to try to be
kind to his last and true and only love.

‘I don’t really mind, Daughter. Please believe me. I
know about command and, at your age, I used to take
considerable pleasure in exercising it.’

‘But I don’t want to command,’ the girl said. In spite
of her resolution not to cry, her eyes were wet. ‘I wish
to serve you.’

‘I know. But you wish to command, too. There’s
nothing wrong in that. All people such as us have it.’

‘Thank you for the such as us.’

‘It wasn’t hard to say,’ the Colonel said. ‘Daughter,’
he added.

Just then the concierge came to the table and said,
‘Excuse me, my Colonel. There is a man outside, I believe
he is a servant of yours, my lady, with quite a large pack¬
age which he says is for the Colonel. Should I keep it in
the storeroom or have it sent to your room?’

‘To my room,’ the Colonel said.

‘Please,’ the girl said. ‘Can’t we look at it here? We
don’t care about anyone here, do we?’

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ACROSS THE RIVER

‘Have it unwrapped and brought in here/

‘Very good.’

‘Later, you may have it taken with great care to my
room and have it wrapped, solidly, for transport at noon
tomorrow.’

‘Very good, my Colonel.’

‘Arc you excited to see it?’ the girl asked.

‘Very,’ said the Colonel. ^Gran Maestro^ some more of
that Roederer, please, and please place a chair in such a
position that we may view a portrait. We are devotees of
the pictorial arts.’

‘There’s no more Roederer cold,’ the Gran Maestro said.
‘But if you would like some Pcrrier-Jouet — ’

‘Bring it,’ the Colonel said and added, ‘Please.’

‘I don’t talk like Georgie Patton,’ the Colonel told her.
‘I don’t have to. And besides he’s dead.’

‘Poor man.’

‘Yes. Poor man all his life. Although quite rich in
money and with a lot of armour.’

‘Do you have anything against armour?’

‘Yes. Most of the people inside of it. It makes men
into bullies which is the first step towards cowardice; true
cowardice, I mean. Perhaps it is a little complicated by
claustrophobia.’

Then he looked at her and smiled and regretted taking
her beyond her depth, as you might take a new swimmer
on a shallow, shelving beach, into too deep water; and
he sought to reassure her.

‘You forgive me, Daughter. Much of what I say is un¬
just. But it is truer than the things that you will read in
Generals’ memoirs. After a man gets one star, or more,
the truth becomes as difficult for him to attain as the Holy
Grail was in our ancestors’ time.’

‘But you were a general officer.’

124.

& INTO THE TREES

‘Not for too damn long/ the Colonel said. ‘Now cap¬
tains/ the General said, ‘they know the exact truth and
they can mostly tell it to you. If they can't, you reclassify
them.’

‘Would you reclassify me if I lied?’

‘It would depend on what you lied about.’

‘I’m not going to lie about anything. I don’t want to
be reclassified. It sounds horrible.’

‘It is,’ the Colonel said. ‘And you send them back to
have it done to them with eleven different copies of why
it should be done, every one of which you sign.’

‘Did you reclassify many?’

‘Plenty.’

The concierge came into the room with the portrait,
carrying it in its big frame, much as a ship moves when
she is carrying too much sail.

‘Get two chairs,’ the Colonel said to the second waiter,
‘and put them there. See that the canvas does not touch
the chairs. And hold it so it does not slip.’

Then to the girl he said, ‘We’ll have to change that
frame.’

‘I know/ she said. ‘It was not my choice. Take it
unframed with you and we’ll choose a good frame next
week. Now look at it. Not at the frame. At what it says,
or does not say, of me.’

It was a beautiful portrait; neither cold, nor snobbish,
nor stylized, nor modern. It was the way you would want
your girl painted if Tintoretto were still around and, if he
were not around, you settled for Velasquez. It was not
the way either of them painted. It was simply a splendid
portrait painted, as they sometimes are, in our time.

‘It’s wonderful,’ the Colonel said. ‘It is truly lovely.’

The concierge and the second waiter were holding it
and looking at it around the edges. The Gran Maestro

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ACROSS THE RIVER

was admiring fully. The American, two tables down, was
looking at it with his journalistic eyes, wondering who
painted it. The back of the canvas was to the other diners.

‘It is wonderful,’ the Colonel said. ‘But you can’t give
me that.’

T already have,’ the girl said. T’m sure my hair was
never that long over my shoulders.’

T think it probably was.’

T could try to let it get that long if you want.’

‘Try,’ the Colonel said. ‘You great beauty you. I love
you very much. You and you portrayed on canvas.’

‘Tell the waiters if you like. I’m sure it won’t come as a
great shock to them.’

‘Take the canvas upstairs to my room,’ the Colonel said
to the concierge. ‘Thank you very much for bringing it
in. If the price is right, I am going to buy it.’

‘The price is right,’ the girl said to him. ‘Should we
have them take it and the chairs down and make a special
showing of it for your compatriot? The Gran Maestro could
tell him the address of the painter and he could visit the
picturesque studio.’

‘It is a very lovely portrait,’ the Gran Maestro said. ‘But
it should be taken to the room. One should never let
Roederer or Perrier-Jouet do the talking.’

‘Take it to the room, please.’

‘You said please without a pause before it.’

‘Thank you,’ the Colonel said. T am very deeply
moved by the portrait and I am not entirely responsible
for what I say.’

‘Let’s neither of us be responsible.’

‘Agreed,’ the Colonel said. ‘The Gran Maestro is really
very responsible. He always was.’

‘No,’ the girl said. ‘I think he did not only from
responsibility but from malice. We all have malice, you

126

& INTO THE TREES

know, of some kind or another in this town. I think
perhaps he did not want the man to have even a journa¬
list’s look into happiness.’

‘Whatever that is.’

T learned that phrase from you and now you have re¬
learned it back from me.’

‘That’s the way it goes,’ the Colonel said. ‘What you
win in Boston you lose in Chicago.’

‘I don’t understand that at all.’

‘Too hard to explain,’ the Colonel said. Then, ‘No.
Of course it isn’t. Making things clear is my main trade.
The hell with being too hard to explain. It is like pro¬
fessional football, calcio. What you win in Milano you lose
in Torino.’

‘I don’t care about football.’

‘Neither do I,’ the Colonel said. ‘Especially not about
the Army and Navy game and when the very high brass
speaks in terms of American football so they can under¬
stand, themselves, what they are talking of.’

‘I think we will have a good time tonight. Even under
the circumstances, whatever they are.’

‘Should we take this new bottle in the gondola?’

‘Yes,’ the girl said. ‘But with deep glasses. I’ll tell the
Gran Maestro, Let’s get our coats and go!’

‘Good. I’ll take some of this medicine and sign for the
G.M. and we’ll go.’

‘I wish it was me taking the medicine instead of you.’

‘I’m glad as hell it isn’t,’ the Colonel said. ‘Should we
pick our gondola or have them bring one to the landing?’

‘Let’s gamble and have them bring one to the landing.
What do we have to lose?’

‘Nothing, I guess. Probably nothing.’

127

CHAPTER XIII

T hey went out the side door of the hotel to the
imbarcadero and the wind hit them. The light from
the hotel shone on the blackness of the gondola and
made the water green. She looks as lovely as a good horse
or as a racing shell, the Colonel thought. Why have I
never seen a gondola before? What hand or eye framed
that darked symmetry?

‘Where should we go?’ the girl asked.

Her hair, in the light from the hotel door and window,
as she stood on the dock by the black gondola, was blow¬
ing back in the wind, so she looked like the figure-head on
a ship. The rest of it, too, the Colonel thought.

‘Let’s just ride through the park,’ the Colonel said.
‘Or through the Bois with the top down. Let him take us
out to Armenonville.’

‘Will we go to Paris?’

‘Sure,’ the Colonel said. ‘Tell him to take us for an
hour where the going is easiest. I don’t want to drive him
into that wind.’

‘The tide is quite high with this wind,’ the girl said.
‘Some of our places he couldn’t get under the bridges.
May I tell him where to go?’

‘Of course, Daughter.’

‘Stow that ice bucket aboard,’ the Colonel said to the
second waiter, who had come out with them.

‘The Gran Maestro said to tell you, as you embarked,
that this bottle of wine was his present.’

‘Thank him properly and tell him he can’t do that.’
‘He had better go into the wind a little first,’ the girl
said. ‘Then I know how he should go.’

‘The Gran Maestro sent this,’ the second waiter said.

128

& INTO THE TREES

It was a folded, old U.S.O.D. blanket. Renata was
talking to the gondoliere, her hair blowing. The gondo-
liere wore a heavy blue navy sweater and he was bare¬
headed too.

‘Thank him/ the Colonel said.

He slipped a bill into the second waiter’s hand. The
second waiter returned it. ‘You already made the nota¬
tion on the check. Neither you nor I nor the Gran Maestro
are starving.’

‘What about the moglie and the bambini?’

‘I don’t have that. Your mediums smacked our house
in Treviso.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You needn’t be/ the second waiter said. ‘You were a
foot soldier as I was.’

‘Permit me to be sorry.’

‘Sure/ the second waiter said. ‘And what the hell
difference does it make? Be happy, my Colonel and be
happy, my Lady.’

They got down into the gondola and there was the same
magic, as always, of the light hull and the sudden displace¬
ment that you made and then the trimming in the dark
privacy and then the second trimming, as the gondoliere
started to scull, laying her partly on her side so that he
would have more control.

‘Now,’ the girl said. ‘We are in our home and I love
you. Please kiss me and put all love into it.’

The Colonel held her close, with her head thrown back
and kissed her until there was nothing left of the kiss but
desperation.

‘I love you.’

‘Whatever that means,’ she interrupted.

‘I love you and I know whatever that means. The
picture is lovely. But there is no word for what you are.’

129

I

A.R.I.T.

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘Wild/ she said. ‘Or careless or unkempt?’

‘No.’

‘The last was one of the first words I learned from my
governess. It means you do not comb your hair enough.
Neglectful is when you do not brush one hundred strokes
at night.’

‘I’m going to run my hand through it and make it
unkempter still.’

‘Your hurt hand?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’re sitting on the wrong sides for that. Change
over.’

‘Good. That is a sensible order couched in simple
language and easily understood.’

It was fun moving over, trying not to disturb the balance
of the gondola, but having to trim again carefully.

‘Now,’ she said. ‘But hold me tightly with the other
arm.’

‘You know just what you want?’

‘I do indeed. Is it un-maidenly? I learned that word,
too, from my governess.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s lovely. Pull up the blanket good and
feel that wind.’

‘It’s from the high mountains.’

‘Yes. And beyond there it’s from somewhere else.’

The Colonel heard the slap of the waves and he felt the
wind come sharply and the rough familiarity of the blan¬
ket and then he felt the girl cold-warm and lovely and
wath upraised breasts that his left hand coasted lightly
over. Then he ran his bad hand through her hair once,
twice and three times and then he kissed her and it was
worse than desperation.

‘Please,’ she said, from almost underneath the blanket.
‘Let me kiss now.’

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& INTO THE TREES

‘No/ he said. ‘Me again.’

The wind was very cold and lashed their faces but under
the blanket there was no wind nor nothing; only his
ruined hand that searched for the island in the great river
with the high steep banks.

‘That’s it/ she said.

He kissed her then and he searched for the island, find¬
ing it and losing it and then finding it for good. For good
and for bad, he thought and for good and for all.

‘My darling,’ he said. ‘My well beloved. Please.’

‘No. Just hold me very tight and hold the high ground,
too.’

The Colonel said nothing, because he was assisting, or
had made an act of presence, at the only mystery that he
believed in except the occasional bravery of man.

‘Please don’t move,’ the girl said. ‘Then move a great
amount.’

The Colonel, lying under the blanket in the wind,
knowing it is only what man does for woman that he
retains; except what he does for his fatherland or his
motherland, however you get the reading, proceeded.

‘Please, darling,’ the girl said. ‘I don’t think I can stand
it.’

‘Don’t think of anything. Don’t think of anything at
all.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Don’t think.’

‘Oh please let’s not talk.’

‘Is it right?’

‘You know.’

‘You’re sure.’

‘Oh please not talk. Please.’

Yes, he thought. Please and please again.

She said nothing and neither did he, and when the

ACROSS THE RIVER

great bird had flown far out of the closed window of the
gondola and was lost and gone, neither of them said
anything. He held her head lightly with his good arm and
the other arm held the high ground now.

‘Please put it where it should be/ she said. ‘Your
hand.’

‘Should we?’

‘No. Just hold me tight and try to love me true.’

‘I love you true/ he said and just then the gondola
turned to the left, quite sharply and the wind was on his
right cheek and he said, with his old eyes catching the
outline of the Palace where they turned and noting it,
‘You’re in the lee now, Daughter.’

‘But it is too soon now. Don’t you know how a woman
feels?’

‘No. Only what you tell me.’

‘Thank you for the you. But don’t you really know?’

‘No. I never asked, I guess.’

‘Guess now,’ she said. ‘And please wait until after we
have gone under the second bridge.’

‘Take a glass of this,’ the Colonel said, reaching
accurately and well for the champagne bucket with the
ice and uncorking the bottle the Gran Maestro had un¬
corked and then placed a common wine cork in.

‘This is good for you, Daughter. It is good for all the
ills that all of us have and for all sadness and indecision.’

‘I have none of those,’ she said, speaking grammatically
as her governess had taught her. ‘I am just a woman, or a
girl, or whatever that is, doing whatever it is she should
not d o. Let’s do it again, please, now I am in the lee.’

‘Where is the island now and in what river?’

‘ Y ou are making the discovery. I am only the unknown
country.’

‘N ot too unknown,’ the Colonel said.

132

& INTO THE TREES

Tlease don’t be rude/ the girl said. ‘And please attack
gently and with the same attack as before.’

Tt’s no attack/ the Colonel said. Tt is something else.’

‘Whatever it is, whatever it is, while I’m still in the lee.’

‘Yes,’ the Colonel said. ‘Yes, now if you want, or will
accept from kindness.’

‘Please, yes.’

She talks like a gentle cat, though the poor cats cannot
speak, the Colonel thought. But then he stopped thinking
and he did not think for a long time.

The gondola now was in one of the secondary canals.
When it had turned from the Grand Canal, the wind had
swung it so the gondoliere had to shift all his weight as
ballast and the Colonel and the girl had shifted too,
under the blanket, with the wind getting under the edge
of the blanket; wildly.

They had not spoken for a long time and the Colonel
had noted that the gondola had only inches free in passing
under the last bridge.

‘How are you, Daughter?’

‘I’m quite lovely.’

‘Do you love me?’

‘Please don’t ask such silly things.’

‘The tide is very high and we only just made that last
bridge.’

‘I think I know where we are going. I was born here.’

‘I’ve made mistakes in my home town,’ the Colonel
said. ‘Being born there isn’t everything.’

‘It is very much,’ the girl said. ‘You know that. Please
hold me very tightly so we can be a part of each other for
a little while.’

‘We can try,’ the Colonel said.

‘Couldn’t I be you?’

‘That’s awfully complicated. We could try of course.’

133

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘rm you now/ she said. ‘And I just took the city of
Paris.’

‘Jesus, Daughter,’ he said. ‘You’ve got an awful lot of
problems on your hands. The next thing, they will
parade the twenty-eighth division through.’

T don’t care.’

‘I do.’

‘Were they not good?’

‘Sure. They had fine commanders, too. But they were
National Guard and hard luck. What you call a T.S.
division. Get your T.S. slip from the chaplain.’

‘I understand none of those things.’

‘They aren’t worth explaining,’ the Colonel said.

‘Will you tell me some true things about Paris? I love
it so much and when I think of you taking it, then, it is as
though I were riding in this gondola with Marechal
Ney.’

‘A no good job,’ the Colonel said. ‘Anyway, not after
he fought all those rear-guard actions coming back from
that big Russian town. He used to fight ten, twelve, fifteen
times a day. Maybe more. Afterwards, he couldn’t
recognize people. Please don’t get in any gondolas with
him.’

‘He was always one of my great heroes.’

‘Yeah. Mine too. Until Quatre Bras. Maybe it
wasn’t Quatre Bras. I’m getting rusty. Give it the generic
title of Waterloo.’

‘Was he bad there?’

‘Awful,’ the Colonel told her. ‘Forget it. Too many
rear-guard actions coming back from Moskova.’

‘But they called him the bravest of the brave.’

‘You can’t eat on that. You have to be that, always, and
then be the smartest of the smart. Then you need a lot of
stuff coming up.*

134

& INTO THE TREES

‘Tell me about Paris, please. We should not make more
love, I know.’

‘I don’t know it. Who says it?*

‘I say it because I love you.’

‘All right. You said it and you love me. So we act on
that. The hell with it.’

‘Do you think we could once more if it would not hurt
you?’

‘Hurt me?’ the Colonel said. ‘When the hell was I
ever hurt?’

135

CHAPTER XIV

lease don’t be bad,’ she said, pulling the blanket
l-^over them both. ‘Please drink a glass of this with me.
X You know you’ve been hurt.’

‘Exactly,’ the Colonel said. ‘Let’s forget it.’

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I learned that word, or those two
words from you. We have forgotten it.’

‘Why do you like the hand?’ the Colonel asked, placing
it where he should.

‘Please don’t pretend to be stupid and please let’s not
think of anything, or anything, or anything.’

‘I am stupid,’ the Colonel said. ‘But I won’t think of
anything or anything nor of nothing nor of his brother,
tomorrow.’

‘Please be good and kind.’

‘I will be. And I will tell you, now, a military secret.
Top Secret equals British Most Secret. I love you.’

‘That’s nice,’ she said. ‘And you put it nicely.’

‘I’m nice,’ the Colonel said and checked on the bridge
that was coming up and saw there was clearance. ‘That’s
the first thing people notice about me.’

‘I always use the wrong words,’ the girl said. ‘Please
just love me. I wish it was me who could love you.’

‘You do.’

‘Yes, I do,’ she said. ‘With all my heart.’

They were going with the wind now and they were both
tired.

‘Do you think —’

‘I don’t think,’ the girl said.

‘Well try and think.’

‘I will.’

‘Drink a glass of this.’

136

& INTO THE TREES

‘Why not? It’s very good.’

It was. There was still ice in the bucket and the wine
was cold and clear.

'Can I stay at the Gritti?’

'No.’

'Why not?’

'It wouldn’t be right. For them. Nor you. The hell
with me.’

'Then I suppose I should go home.’

'Yes/ the Colonel said. 'That is the logical supposition.’

'That is an awful way to say a sad thing. Can’t wc even
pretend some things?’

‘No. I’ll take you home and you sleep good and
well and tomorrow we will meet where and when you
say.’

‘May I call the Gritti?’

'Of course. I’ll always be awake. Will you call when
you are awake?’

‘Yes. But why do you always wake so early?’

'It is a business habit.’

‘Oh, I wish you were not in that business and that you
were not going to die.’

'So do I,’ said the Colonel. 'But I’m getting out of the
business.’

'Yes,’ she said, sleepily and comfortably. 'Then we go
to Rome and get the clothes.’

'And live happily ever after.’

‘Please don’t,’ she said. 'Please, please, don’t. You
know I made the resolution not to cry.’

‘You’re crying now,’ the Colonel said. ‘What the hell
have you got to lose on that resolution?’

‘Take me home please.’

‘That’s what I was doing in the first place,’ the Colonel
told her.

137

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘Be kind once first.’

T will,’ the Colonel said.

After they, or the Colonel, rather, had paid the gondo-
liere who was unknowing, yet knowing all; solid, sound,
respectful and trustworthy; they walked into the Piazzetta
and then across the great, cold, wind-swept square that
was hard and old under their feet. They walked holding
close and hard in their sorrow and their happiness.

‘This is the place where the German shot the pigeons,’
the girl said.

‘We probably killed him,’ the Colonel said. ‘Or his
brother. Maybe we hanged him. I wouldn’t know. I’m
not in C.I.D.’

‘Do you love me still on these water-worn, cold and old
stones?’

‘Yes. I’d like to spread a bed roll here and prove it.’

‘That would be more barbarous than the pigeon
shooter.’

‘I’m barbarous,’ the Colonel said.

‘Not always.’

‘Thank you for the not always.’

‘We turn here.’

‘I think I know that. When are they going to tear that
damned Cinema Palace down and put up a real cathedral?
That’s what T5 Jackson wants.’

‘When someone brings Saint Mark back another time
under a load of pork from Alexandria.’

‘That was a Torcello boy.’

‘You’re a Torcello boy.’

‘Yes. I’m a Basso Piave boy and a Grappa boy straight
here from Pertica. I’m a Pasubio boy, too, if you know
what that means. It was worse just to live there than to
fight anywhere else. In the platoon they used to share
anyone’s gonococci brought from Schio and carried in a

138

& INTO THE TREES

match-box. They used to share this just so they could
leave because it was intolerable.’

‘But you stayed.’

‘Sure,’ the Colonel said. ‘I’m always the last man to
leave the party, fiesta I mean, not as in political party.
The truly unpopular guest.’

‘Should we go?’

‘I thought you had made up your mind.’

‘I had. But when you said it about unpopular guest it
was unmade.’

‘Keep it made up.’

‘I can hold a decision.’

‘I know. You can hold any damn thing. But, Daughter,
sometimes you don’t just hold. That is for stupids. Some¬
times you have to switch fast.’

‘I’ll switch if you like.’

‘No. I think the decision was sound.’

‘But won’t it be an awfully long time until morning?’

‘That all depends on whether one has luck or not.’

‘I should sleep well.’

‘Yes,’ the Colonel said. ‘At your age if you can’t sleep
they ought to take you out and hang you.’

‘Oh please.’

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I meant shoot you.’

‘We are nearly home and you could be kind now if you
wanted.’

‘I’m so kind I stink. Let somebody else be kind.’

They were in front of the palace now and there it was;
the palace. There was nothing to do now but pull the bell
cord, or enter with the key. I’ve been lost in this place,
the Colonel thought and I was never lost in my life.

‘Please kiss me good night, kindly.’

The Colonel did and loved her so he could not bear it.

She opened the door with the key, which was in her

139

ACROSS THE RIVER

bag. Then she was gone and the Colonel was alone, with
the worn pavement, the wind, which still held in the
north and the shadows from where a light went on. He
walked home.

Only tourists and lovers take gondolas, he thought.
Except to cross the canal in the places where there are
no bridges. I ought to go to Harry’s, probably, or some
damn place. But I think I’ll go home.

140

CHAPTER XV

I T was really home, if a hotel room can be so described.
His pyjamas were laid on the bed. There was a bottle
of Valpolicella by the reading light and by the bed a
bottle of mineral water, in an ice bucket with a glass
beside it on the silver tray. The portrait had been de-
framed and was placed on two chairs where he could see
it from the bed.

The Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune lay on
the bed beside his three pillows. He used three pillows, as
Arnaldo knew and his extra bottle of medicine, not the
one that he carried in his pocket, was beside the reading
light. The inner doors of the armoire, the mirrored ones,
were opened in such a way, that he could see the portrait
from the side. His scuffed slippers were by the bed.

ril buy it, the Colonel said, to himself, since there was
no one else there except the portrait.

He opened the Valpolicella which had been uncorked,
and then re-corked, carefully, precisely and lovingly and
poured himself a glass into the glass which was much better
than any hotel should use which was faced with breakage.

‘Here’s to you. Daughter,’ he said. ‘You beauty and
lovely. Do you know, that, among other things, you smell
good always? You smell wonderfully even in a high wind
or under a blanket or kissing good night. You know almost
no one does and you don’t use scent.’

She looked at him from the portrait and said nothing.
‘ 7 ’he hell with it,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to talk to a
picture.’

What do you think went wrong tonight? he thought.
Me, I guess. Well I will try to be a good boy tomorrow
all day; starting at first light.

141

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘Daughter,’ he said and he was talking to her and not to
a picture now. ‘Please know I love you and that I wish to
be delicate and good. And please stay with me always
now.’

The picture was the same.

The Colonel took out the emeralds from his pocket and
looked at them, feeling them slide, cold and yet warm, as
they take warmth and as all good stones have warmth,
from his bad hand into his good hand.

I should have put these in an envelope and locked them
up, he thought. But what the ★ security is there better
than I can give them? I have to get these back to you fast,
Daughter.

It was fun, though. And they’re not worth more than a
quarter of a million. What I would make in four hundred
years. Have to check that figure.

He put the stones in the pocket of his pyjamas and put
a handkerchief over them. Then he buttoned the pocket.
The first sound thing you learn, he thought, is to have
flaps and buttons on all your pockets. I imagine that I
learned it too early.

The stones felt good. They were hard and warm against
his flat, hard, old and warm chest and he noted how the
wind was blowing, looked at the portrait, poured another
glass of Valpolicella and then started to read the Paris
edition of the New York Herald Tribune,

I ought to take the pills, he thought. But the hell with
the pills.

Then he took them just the same and went on reading
the New York Herald, He was reading Red Smith and he
liked him very much.

142

CHAPTER XVI

T h e Colonel woke before daylight and checked that
there was no one sleeping with him.

The wind was still blowing hard and he went to
the open windows to check the weather. There was no
light as yet in the east across the Grand Canal, but his
eyes could see how rough the water was. Be a hell of a
tide today, he thought. Probably flood the square. That’s
always fun. Except for the pigeons.

He went to the bathroom, taking the Herald Tribune
and Red Smith with him, as well as a glass of Valpolicella.
Damn I’ll be glad when the Gran Maestro gets those big
fiascos^ he thought. This wine gets awfully dreggy at the
end.

He sat there, with his newspaper, thinking of the things
of that day.

There would be the telephone call. But it might be very
late because she would be sleeping late. The young sleep
late, he thought and the beautiful sleep half again as late.
She certainly would not call early and the shops did not
open until nine or a little later.

Hell, he thought, I have these damned stones. How
could anyone do a thing like that?

You know how, he said to himself, reading the ads. in
the back of the paper. You’ve put it on the line enough
times. It isn’t crazy or morbid. She just wanted to put it
on the line. It was a good thing it was me, he thought.

That is the only good thing about being me, he con¬
sidered. Well I’m me, God-damn it. For better or for
much worse. How would you like to sit on the can as you
have sat almost every morning of your damned life with
this in your pocket^

H3

ACROSS THE RIVER

He was addressing no one, except, perhaps, posterity.

How many mornings have you sat in the row with all
the others? That’s the worst of it. That and shaving. Or
you go off to be alone and think or not think and pick a
good piece of cover and there are two riflemen there
already, or some boy asleep.

There’s no more privacy in the army than in a pro¬
fessional ★ .I’ve never been in a professional

★ but I imagine they run it much the same. I could
learn to run one, he thought.

Then I’d make all my leading ★ characters
Ambassadors and the unsuccessful ones could be Corps
commanders or command military districts in peace time.
Don’t be bitter, boy, he said to himself. It’s too early in
the morning and your duty’s not completed yet.

What would you do with their wives, he asked himself?
Buy them new hats or shoot them, he said. It’s all part of
the same process.

He looked at himself in the mirror, set in the half-closed
door. It showed him at a slight angle. It’s a deflexion
shot, he said to himself and they didn’t lead me enough.
Boy, he said, you certainly are a beat-up, old looking
bastard.

Now you have to shave and look at that face while you
do it. Then you must get a hair-cut. That’s easy in this
town. You’re a Colonel of Infantry, boy. You can’t go
around looking like Joan of Arc or General (Breveted)
George Armstrong Custer. That beautiful horse-cavalry-
man. I guess it is fun to be that way and have a loving
wife and use sawdust for brains. But it must have seemed
like the wrong career to him when they finished up on that
hill above the Little Big Horn, with the ponies making the
circle around them in all the dust and the sage brush
crushed by the hooves of the horses of the other people and

144

& INTO THE TREES

nothing left to him for the rest of his life but that old
lovely black powder smell and his own people shooting
each other and themselves, because they were afraid of
what the squaws would do to them.

The body was unspeakably mutilated, they used to put
in this same paper. And on that hill to know you’d made
one real mistake, finally and for good and complete with
true handles. Poor horse-cavalryman, he thought. The
end of all his dreams. That’s one good thing about being
an Infantryman. You never have any dreams except bad
dreams.

Well, he said to himself, we’re finished here and pretty'
soon there will be good light and I can see the portrait.
I’ll be damned if I’ll turn that in. I keep that.

Oh Christ, he said, I wonder what she looks like now
sleeping. I know how she looks, he said to himself.
Wonderful. She sleeps as though she had not gone to
sleep. As though she were just resting. I hope she is, he
thought. I hope she’s resting well. Christ Jesus how I love
her and I hope I never do her harm.

K A.R.I.T.

145

CHAPTER XVII

W H E N it Started to be light, the Colonel saw the
portrait. He, very probably, saw it as quickly as
any man who was civilized and had to read and
sign the forms he did not believe in, could see an object, as
soon as it was visible. Yes, he said to himself, I have eyes
and they have fairly fast perception still and once they
had ambition. I have led my Ruffians where they were
well peppered. There are but three of the two hundred
and fifty of them left alive and they are for the town’s end
to beg during life.

That’s from Shakespeare, he told the portrait. The
winner and still the undisputed champion.

Someone might take him, in a short bout. But I would
rather revere him. Did you ever read King Lear^ Daughter?
Mr, Gene Tunney did and he was the champion of the
world. But 1 read it too. Soldiers care for Mr. Shake¬
speare too, though it may seem impossible.

You have anything to say in your defence except to put
your head back? he asked the portrait. You want some
more, Shakespeare?

You don’t have to defend. You just rest and leave it as
it is. It’s no good. Your defence and my defence is no
damn good. But who could tell you to go out and hang
yourself the way we do?

Nobody, he said to himself and to the portrait. And
certainly not me.

He put his good hand down and found that the room
waiter had left a second bottle of Valpolicella alongside of
where the first had been.

If you love a country, the Colonel thought, you might
as well admit it. Sure, admit it, boy.

146

& INTO THE TREES

I have loved three and lost them thrice. Give a credit.
We’ve re-took two. Retaken, he corrected.

And we will retake the other one, General Fat Ass
Franco on his shooting stick with the advice of his doctor and
tame ducks and a screen of Moorish cavalry when he shoots.

Yes, he said softly to the girl who looked at him clearly
now in the first and best light.

We will retake and they will all be hung upside down
outside of filling stations. You have been warned, he
added.

‘Portrait,’ he said, ‘why the hell can’t you just get into
bed with me instead of being eighteen solid stone blocks
away. Maybe more. I’m not as sharp now as I was; when¬
ever.’

‘Portrait,’ he said to the girl and to the portrait and to
the girl both; but there wasn’t any girl and the portrait
was as it was painted.

‘Portrait, keep your God-damn chin up so you can
break my heart easier.’

It certainly was a lovely present, the Colonel thought.

‘Can you manoeuvre?’ he asked the portrait. ‘Good and
fast?’

Portrait said nothing and the Colonel answered. You
know damn well she can. She’d out-manoeuvre you the
best day you were ever born and she would stay and fight
where you would ★ , discreetly.

‘Portrait,’ he said. ‘Boy or daughter or my one true
love or whatever it is; you know what it is, portrait.’

The Portrait, as before, did not answer. But the Colonel,
who was a General now again, early in the morning at the
only time he really knew, and with Valpolicella, knew as
absolutely as though he had just read his third Wasser-
mann that there was no ★ in Portrait and he felt
shame for having talked to Portrait roughly.

H7

ACROSS THE RIVER

T’ll be the best God-damned boy you ever witnessed
today. And you can tell your principal that.’

Portrait, as was her fashion, was silent.

She probably would speak to a horse-cavalryman, the
General, for now he had two stars and they grated on his
shoulders and showed white in the vague, scuffed red on
the plaque in front of his jeep. He never used command
cars, nor semi-armoured vehicles complete with sand-bags.

‘The hell with you, portrait,’ he said. ‘Or get your T.S.
slip from the universal chaplain of us all, with combined
religions. You ought to be able to eat on that.’

‘The hell with you,’ the Portrait said, without speaking.
‘You low class soldier.’

‘Yes,’ the Colonel said, for now he was a Colonel again
and had relinquished all his former rank.

T love you, Portrait, very much. But don’t get rough
w ith me. I love you very much because you are beautiful.
But I love the girl better, a million times better, hear it?’

There was no sign that she heard it, so he tired of it.

‘You arc in a fixed position, Portrait,’ he said. ‘Without
or with any frame. And I am going to manoeuvre.’

The portrait was as silent as she had been since the con¬
cierge had brought her into the room, and aided and
abetted by the second w^aitcr, had shown her to the
Colonel and to the girl.

The Colonel looked at her and saw she w^as indefensible,
now that the light was good, or almost good.

He saw, too, that she was the portrait of his owm true
love and so he said, T am sorry for all the stupidnesses I
say. I do not wish ever to be brutal. Maybe we could
both sleep a little while, with luck, and then, perhaps, your
Mistress would call on the telephone?’

Maybe she wall even call, lie thought.

148

CHAPTER XVIII

T h e hall porter pushed the Gazzettina under the door
and the Colonel had it, noiselessly, almost as soon as
it had passed through the slit.

He very nearly took it from the hall porter’s hand. He
did not like the hall porter since he had found him, one
day, going through his bag, when he, the Colonel, had re¬
entered the room after having left it, presumably for some
time. He had to come back to the room to get his bottle of
the medicine, which he had forgotten, and the hall porter
was well through his bag.

‘I guess you don’t say stick them up in this hotel,’ the
Colonel had said. ‘But you’re no credit to your town.’

There was silence produced and re-produced, by the
striped waistcoated man with the Fascist face and the
Colonel said, ‘Go on, boy, look through the rest of it. I
don’t carry any military secrets with my toilet articles.’

Since then, there was scant friendship between them
and the Colonel enjoyed trying to take the morning paper
from the striped waistcoated man’s hand; noiselessly, and
when he heard, or saw it first make a move under the
door.

‘O.K., you won today, jerk,’ he said in the best Venetian
dialect he could summon at that hour. ‘Go hang yourself’
But they don’t hang themselves, he thought. They just
have to go on putting papers under other people’s doors
that do not even hate them. It must be quite a difficult
trade being an ex-Fascist. Maybe he is not an ex-Fascist,
too. How do you know.

I can’t hate Fascists, he thought. Nor Krauts either,
since unfortunately, I am a soldier.

‘Listen, Portrait,’ he said. ‘Do I have to hate the

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Krauts because we kill them? Do I have to hate them as
soldiers and as human beings? It seems too easy a solution
to me/

Well, Portrait. Forget it. Forget it. You’re not old
enough to know about it. You are two years younger than
the girl that you portray and she is younger and older than
hell; which is quite an old place.

‘Listen, Portrait,’ he said and saying it, knew that now
as long as he lived, he would have someone to talk to at
the early hours that he woke,

‘As I was saying, Portrait. The hell with that too.
That’s too old for you too. That is one of the things you
can’t say no matter how true it is. There are lots of things
I can never say to you and maybe that will be good for
me. It is about time something was. What do you think
would be good for me. Portrait?’

‘What’s the matter. Portrait?’ he asked her. ‘You
getting hungry? I am.’

So he rang the bell for the waiter who would bring
breakfast.

He knew that now, even though the light was so good
that every wave showed on the Grand Canal, lead-
coloured and solid heavy with the wind and the tide now
high over the landing steps of the Palace directly opposite
his room, that there would be no telephone call for several
hours.

The young sleep good, he thought. They deserve it.

‘Why do we have to get old?’ he asked the waiter who
had come in with his glass-eye and the menu.

‘I don’t know, my Colonel. I suppose it is a natural
process.’

‘Yes. I guess I imagine that too. The eggs fried with
their faces up. Tea and toast.’

‘You don’t want anything American?’

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& INTO THE TREES

‘The hell with anything American except me. Is the
Gran Maestro astir yet?’

‘He has your Valpolicella in the big wicker fiascos of
two litres and I have brought this decanter with it.’

‘That one,’ the Colonel said. ‘I wish to Christ I could
give him a regiment.’

T don’t think he would want one, really.’

‘No,’ the Colonel said. ‘I don’t want one, really,
myself.’

15 *

CHAPTER XIX

T h e Colonel breakfasted with the leisure of a fighter
who has been clipped badly, hears four and knows
how to relax truly for five seconds more.

‘Portrait,’ he said. ‘You ought to relax too. That’s the
only thing that is going to be difficult about you. That’s
what they call the static element in painting. You know,
Portrait, that almost no pictures, paintings rather, move
at all. A few do. But not many.

‘I wish that your mistress was here and we could have
movement. How do girls like you and she know so much
so damn young and be so beautiful?

‘With us, if a girl is really beautiful, she comes from
Texas and maybe, with luck, she can tell you what month
it is. They can all count good though.

‘They teach them how to count and keep their legs
together and how to put their hair up in pin curls. Some¬
time, Portrait, for your sins, if you have any, you ought to
have to sleep in a bed with a girl who has put her hair up
in pin curls to be beautiful tomorrow. Not tonight.
They’d never be beautiful tonight. For tomorrow, when
wc make the competition.

‘The girl, Renata, that you are, is sleeping now without
ever having done anything to her hair. She is sleeping
with it spread out on the pillow and all it is to her is a
glorious, dark, silky annoyance, that she can hardly
remember to comb, except that her governess taught her.

‘I see her in the street with the lovely long-legged stride
and the wind doing anything it wants to her hair and her
true breasts under the sweater and then I see the nights in
Texas with the pin curls; tight and subjected by metallic
instruments.

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& INTO THE TREES

Tin me no pin curls, my beloved,' he said to the portrait,
*and I will try to lay it on the line in round, heavy, hard
silver dollars or with the other.*

I mustn’t get rough, he thought.

Then he said to the portrait, for he did not capitalize
her now in his mind, ‘You are so God-damned beautiful
you stink. Also you are jail-bait. Renata’s two years older
now. You are under seventeen.

And why can’t I have her and love her and cherish her
and never be rude, nor bad and have the five sons that go
to the five corners of the world; wherever that is! I don’t
know. I guess the cards we draw are those we get. You
wouldn’t like to re-deal would you dealer?

No. They only deal to you once and then you pick them
up and play them. I can play them, if I draw any damn
thing at all, he told portrait; who was unimpressed.

‘Portrait,’ he said. ‘You better look the other way so
that you will not be un-maidenly. I am going to take a
shower now and shave, something you will never have to
do, and put on my soldier-suit and go and walk around
this town even though it is too early.’

So, he got out of bed, favouring his bad leg, which hurt
him always. He pulled the reading light with his bad
hand. There was sufficient light and he had been wasting
electricity for nearly an hour.

He regretted this as he regretted all his errors. He
walked past portrait, only looking casually and looked at
himself in the mirror. He had dropped both parts of his
pyjamas and he looked at himself critically and truly.

‘You beat-up old bastard,’ he said to the mirror. Por¬
trait was a thing of the past. Mirror was actuality and of
this day.

The gut is flat, he said without uttering it. The chest is
all right except where it contains the defective muscle.

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ACROSS THE RIVER

We are hung as we are hung, for better or worse, or some¬
thing, or something awful.

You are one half a hundred years old, you bastard you.
Now go in and take a shower and scrub good and after¬
wards put on your soldier-suit. Today is another day.

154

CHAPTER XX

T h e Colonel stopped at the reception desk in the
lobby, but the concierge was not there yet. There
was only the night porter.

‘Can you put something in the safe for me?’

‘No, my Colonel. No one may open the safe until the
assistant manager, or the concierge arrives. But I will
guard anything for you that you wish.’

‘Thank you. It’s not worth the trouble,’ and he but¬
toned the Gritti envelope, with the stones inside, the
envelope addressed to himself, into the inside left pocket of
his tunic.

‘There’s no real crime here now,’ the night porter said.
It had been a long night and he was happy to speak to
someone. ‘There never really was, my Colonel. There are
only differences of opinion and politics.’

‘What do you have for politics?’ the Colonel asked; for
he was lonely, too.

‘About what you would expect.’

‘I see. And how is your thing going?’

‘I think it goes quite well. Maybe not as well as last
year. But still quite well. We were beaten and we have
to wait a while now.’

‘Do you work at it?’

‘Not much. It is more the politics of my heart than of
my head. I believe in it with my head too, but I have very
little political development.’

‘When you get it you won’t have any heart.’

‘Maybe not. Do you have politics in the army?’
‘Plenty,’ the Colonel said. ‘But not what you mean.’
‘Well, we better not discuss it then. I have not meant
to be intrusive.’

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ACROSS THE RIVER

T asked the question; the original question rather. It
was only to talk. It was not an interrogation.’

T don’t think it was. You do not have the face of an
inquisitor, my Colonel and I know about the Order,
although I am not a member.’

‘You may be member material. I’ll take it up with the
Gran Maestro.^

‘We come from the same town; but from distinct quarters.’

‘It’s a good town.’

‘My Colonel, I have so little political development that
I believe all honourable men are honourable.’

‘Oh you’ll get over that,’ the Colonel assured him.
‘Don’t worry, boy. You’ve got a young party. Naturally
you make errors.’

‘Please don’t talk like that.’

‘It was just rough early morning joking.’

‘Tell me, my Colonel, what do you really think about Tito?’

‘I think several things. But he’s my next door neigh¬
bour. I’ve found it better not to talk about my neighbour.’

‘I’d like to learn.’

‘Then learn it the hard way. Don’t you know people
don’t give answers to such questions?’

T had hoped they did.’

‘They don’t,’ the Colonel said. ‘Not in my position.
All I can tell you is that Mr. Tito has plenty problems.’

‘Well, I know that now truly,’ the night porter who
was really only a boy said.

T hope you do,’ the Colonel said. ‘I wouldn’t call it,
as knowledge, any pearl of great price. Now, good day, for
I must take a walk for the good of my liver, or something. ’

‘Good day, my Colonel. Fa brutto tempo.^

‘Bruttissimo^ the Colonel said and, pulling the belt of
his raincoat tight and settling his shoulders into it and the
skirts well down, he stepped out into the wind.

156

CHAPTER XXI

T h e Colonel took the ten centesimi gondola across the
Canal, paying the usual dirty note and standing with
the crowd of those condemned to early rising.

He looked back at the Gritti and saw the windows of his
room; still open. There was no promise, nor threat of
rain; only the same strong, wild, cold wind from the
mountains. Everyone in the gondola looked cold and the
Colonel thought, I wish I could issue these wind-proof
coats to everyone on board. God, and every officer that
ever wore one, knows they are not water-proof and who
made the money out of that one?

You can’t get water through a Burberry. But 1 suppose
some able jerk has his boy in Groton now, or maybe
Canterbury, where the big contractors’ boys go, because
our coats leaked.

And what about some brother officer of mine who split
with him? I wonder wlio the Benny Meyers of the ground
forces were? There probably wasn’t only one. Probably,
he thought, there must be very many. You must not be
awake yet, to talk that simply. They do keep the wind out
though. The raincoats. Raincoats my ass.

The gondola pulled up between the stakes on the far
bank of the canal and the Colonel watched the black-clad
people climb up out of the black-painted vehicle. Is she a
vehicle? he thought. Or must a vehicle have wheels or be
tracked?

Nobody would give you a penny for your thoughts, he
thought. Not this morning. But I’ve seen them worth a
certain amount of money when the chips were down.

He penetrated into the far side of the city, the side that
finally fronted on the Adriatic and that he liked the best.

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ACROSS THE RIVER

He was going in by a very narrow street and he was going
to not keep track of the number of more or less north and
south streets that he crossed, nor count the bridges and
then try and orient himself so he would come out at the
market without getting up any dead ends.

It was a game you play, as some people used to play
double Canfield or any solitary^ card games. But it had
the advantage of you moving while you do it and that you
look at the houses, the minor vistas, the shops and the
trattorias and at old palaces of the city of Venice while you
are walking. If you loved the city of Venice it was an
excellent game.

It is a sort of solitaire ambulante and what you win is the
happiness of your eye and heart. If you made the market,
on this side of town, without ever being stymied, you won
the game. But you must not make it too easy and you
must not count.

On the other side of the town, game was to leave from
the Gritti and make the Rialto by the Fondamente JSfuove
without a mistake.

Then you could climb the bridge and cross it and go
down into the market. He liked the market best. It was
the part of any town he always went to first.

Just then he heard the two young men behind him
saying the things about him. He knew they were young
men by their voices and he did not look back, but listened
carefully for distance and waited for the next turn to see
them, as he turned.

They are on their way to work, he decided. Maybe they
are former Fascists or maybe they are something else, or
maybe it is just the line that they are talking. But they are
making it pretty personal now. It isn’t just Americans, it
is also me, myself, my grey hair, the slightly crooked way I
walk, the combat boots (those, of that stripe, disliked the

158

& INTO THE TREES

practicability of combat boots. They liked boots that rang
on the flag stones and took a high black polish).

It is my uniform which they find to be without grace.
Now it is why I am walking at this hour and now it is
their absolute security that I can no longer make love.

The Colonel swung sharp to the left at the next corner,
seeing what he had to deal with and the exact distance
and when the two young men came around the corner
which was formed by the apse of the church of Frari there
was no Colonel. He was in the dead angle behind the apse
of the ancient church and as they passed, he, hearing them
come by their talk, stepped out with a hand in each low
pocket of his raincoat and turned himself and the raincoat,
with the two hands in the pockets, towards them.

They stopped and he looked at them both in the face
and smiled his old and worn death smile. Then he looked
down at their feet, as you always look at the feet of such
people, since they wear their shoes too tight and when you
take the shoes off them you see their hammer-toes. The
Colonel spat on the pavement and said nothing.

The two of them, they were the first thing he had sus¬
pected, looked at him with hatred and with that other
thing. Then they were off like marsh-birds, walking with
the long strides of herons too, the Colonel thought and
something oi the flight of curlews and looking back with
hatred, waiting to have the last word if the distance was
ever safe.

It is a pity they weren’t ten against one, the Colonel
thought. They might have fought. I should not blame
them, since they were defeated.

But their manners were not good in respect to a man
of my rank and age. Also it was not intelligent to think all
fifty-year-old colonels would not understand their lan¬
guage. Nor was it intelligent to think old Infantrymen

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ACROSS THE RIVER

would not fight this early in the morning against the
simple odds of two to one.

rd hate to fight in this town where I love the people. I
would avoid it. But couldn’t those badly educated youths
realize what sort of animal they were dealing with?
Don’t they know how you get to walk that way? Nor any
of the other signs that combat people show as surely as a
fisherman’s hands tell you if he is a fisherman from the
creases from the cord cuts.

It is true they only saw my back and ass and legs and
boots. But you’d think they might have told from the way
they must move. Maybe they don’t any more. But when I
had a chance to look at them and think. Take the two of
them out and hang them, I believe they understood. They
understood quite clearly.

What’s a man’s life worth anyway? Ten thousand
dollars if his insurance is paid up in our army. What the
hell has that got to do with it. Oh yes, that was what I
was thinking about before those jerks showed; how much
money I had saved my government, in my time when
people like Benny Meyers were in the trough.

Yes, he said and how much you lost them at the Chateau
that time at ten Gs a head. Well nobody ever really
understood it except me, I guess. There’s no reason to tell
them now. Your commanding general sometimes puts
things down as the Fortunes of War. Back at Army they
know such things are bound to happen. You do it, as
ordered, with a big butcher bill and you’re a hero.

Christ, I am opposed to the excessive butcher bill, he
thought. But you get the orders, and you have to carry
them out. It is the mistakes that are no good to sleep with.
But why the hell sleep with them anyway. It never did
any good. But they can certainly crawl into a sack some¬
times. They can crawl in and stay in there with you.

i6o

& INTO THE TREES

Cheer up, boy, he said. Remember you had a lot of
money on you when you picked that one. And you might
have been stripped if you lost. You can’t fight a lick
any more with your hands and you didn’t have any
weapon.

So don’t be gloomy, boy, or man, or Colonel, or busted
General. We’re almost to the market now and you made
it without hardly noticing.

Hardly noticing is bad, he added.

i6:

L

A.R.I.T.

CHAPTER XXII

H e loved the market. A great part of it was close-
packed and crowded into several side streets and it
was so concentrated that it was difficult not to
jostle people, unintentionally and each time you stopped to
look, to buy, or to admire, you formed an Hot de resistance
against the flow of the morning attack of the purchasers.

The Colonel liked to study the spread and high piled
cheeses and the great sausages. People at home think
mortadella is a sausage, he thought.

Then he said to the woman in the booth, ‘Let me try a
little of that sausage, please. Only a sliver.’

She cut a thin, paper thin, slice for him, ferociously and
lovingly and when the Colonel tasted it, there was the half
smoky, black pepper-corned, true flavour of the meat
from the hogs that ate acorns in the mountains.

‘I will take a quarter of a kilo.’

The Barone’s lunches for the shooting blinds were of a
Spartan quality, which the Colonel respected, since he
knew no one should eat much while shooting. He felt,
though, that he might augment the lunch with this
sausage and share it with the polcr and picker-upper. He
might give a slice to Bobby, the retriever, who would be
wet through to his hide many times and enthusiastic still,
but shaking with cold.

‘Is this the best sausage that you have?’ he asked the
woman. ‘Have you nothing that does not show and is
reserved for better and steadier customers?’

‘This is the best sausage. There are many other
sausages, as you know. But this is the best.’

‘Then give me one-eighth of a kilo of a sausage that is
highly fortifying, but is not highly seasoned.’

162

& INTO THE TREES

T have it/ she said. Tt is a little new but exactly as
you describe.’

This sausage was for Bobby.

But you do not say that you buy sausages for a dog in
Italy where the worst crime is to be considered a fool and
many people go hungry. You may give expensive sausage
to a dog before a man who works for his living and knows
what a dog goes through in water in cold weather. But
you do not buy them, stating your purpose in possessing
them, unless you are a fool, or a millionaire from the war
and from after.

The Colonel paid for the wrapped-up package and
proceeded on through the market inhaling the smell of
roasted coffee and looking at the amount of fat on each
carcass in the butcher section, as though he were enjoying
the Dutch painters, whose names no one remembers, who
painted, in perfection of detail, all things you shot, or that
were eatable.

A market is the closest thing to a good museum like the
Prado or as the Accademia is now, the Colonel thought.

He took a short cut and was at the fish-market.

In the market, spread on the slippery stone floor, or in
their baskets, or their rope-handled boxes, were the heavy,
grey-green lobsters with their magenta overtones that
presaged their death in boiling water. They have all been
captured by treachery, the Colonel thought, and their
claws are pegged.

There were the small soles and there were a few alba-
core and bonito. These last, the Colonel thought, looked
like boat-tailed bullets, dignified in death and with the
huge eye of the pelagic fish.

They were not made to be caught except for their
voraciousness. The poor sole exists, in shallow water, to
feed man. But these other roving bullets, in their great

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ACROSS THE RIVER

bands, live in blue water and travel through all oceans
and all seas.

A nickel for your thoughts now, he thought. Let’s see
what else they have.

There were many eels, alive and no longer confident in
their eeldom. There were fine prawns that could make a
scampi brochetto spitted and broiled on a rapier-like instru¬
ment that could be used as a Brooklyn ice-pick. There
were medium-sized shrimps, grey and opalescent, awaiting
their turn, too, for the boiling water and their immor¬
tality, to have their shucked carcases float out easily on
an ebb tide on the Grand Canal.

The speedy shrimp, the Colonel thought, with tentacles
longer than the moustaches of that old Japanese admiral,
comes here now to die for our benefit. Oh Christian shrimp,
he thought, master of retreat, and with your wonderful
intelligence service in those two light whips, why did they
not teach you about nets and that lights are dangerous?

Must have been some slip-up, he thought.

Now he looked at the many small crustaceans, the razor-
edge clams you only should eat raw if you had your
typhoid shots up to date, and all the small delectables.

He went past these, stopping to ask one seller where
his clams came from. They came from a good place, with¬
out sewerage and the Colonel asked to have six opened.
He drank the juice and cut the clam out, cutting close
against the shell with the curved knife the man handed
him. The man had handed him the knife because he
knew from experience the Colonel cut closer to the shell
than he had been taught to cut.

The Colonel paid him the pittance that they cost, which
must have been much greater than the pittance those re¬
ceived who caught them, and he thought, now I must see
the stream and canal fishes and get back to the hotel.

164

CHAPTER XXIII

T h e Colonel arrived at the lobby of the Hotel Gritti-
Palace. His gondolieres were paid off and, now,
inside the hotel, there was no wind.

It had taken two men to bring the gondola up the
Grand Canal from the market. They had both worked
hard, and he had paid them what it was worth, and some
more.

^Are there any calls for me?’ he asked the concierge,
who was now in attendance.

The concierge was light, fast, sharp-faced, intelligent
and polite, always, without subservience. He wore the
crossed keys of his office on the lapels of his blue uniform
without ostentation. He was the concierge. It is a rank
very close to that of Captain, the Colonel thought. An
officer and not a Gentleman. Make it top sergeant in the
old days; except he’s dealing always with the brass.

‘My lady has called twice,’ the concierge said in Eng¬
lish. Or whatever that language should be called we all
speak, the Colonel thought. Leave it at English. That is
about what they have left. They should be allowed to keep
the name of the language. Cripps will probably ration it
shortly, anyway.

‘Please put me through to her at once,’ he told the
concierge.

The concierge commenced to dial numbers.

‘You may talk over there, my Colonel,’ he said. ‘I have
made the connection.’

‘You’re fast.’

‘Over there,’ the concierge said.

Inside the booth the Colonel lifted the receiver and said,
automatically, ‘Colonel Cantwell speaking.’

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ACROSS THE RIVER

T called twice, Richard,* the girl said. 'But they
explained that you were out. Where were you?’

'At the market. How are you, my lovely?’

'No one listens on this phone at this hour. I am your
lovely. Whoever that is.’

'You. Did you sleep well?’

'It was like ski-ing in the dark. Not really ski-ing but
really dark.’

'That’s the way it should be. Why did you wake so
early? You’ve frightened my concierge.’

‘If it is not un-maidenly, how soon can we meet, and
where?’

'Where you wish and when you wish.’

'Do you still have the stones and did Miss Portrait help
any?’

'Yes to both questions. The stones are in my upper left
hand pocket buttoned down. Miss Portrait and I talked
late and early and it made everything much easier.’

'Do you love her more than me?’

'I’m not abnormal yet. Perhaps that’s bragging. But
she’s lovely.’

‘Where should we meet?’

‘Should we have breakfast at the Florian, on the right
hand side of the square? The square should be flooded
and it will be fun to watch.’

'I’ll be there in twenty minutes if you want me.’

‘I want you,’ the Colonel said and hung up.

Coming out of the telephone booth he, suddenly, did
not feel good and then he felt as though the devil had him
in an iron cage, built like an iron lung or an iron maiden,
and he walked, grey-faced, to the concierge’s desk and
said, in Italian, ‘Domenico, Ico, could you get me a glass
of water, please?’

The concierge was gone and he leaned on the desk

i66

& INTO THE TREES

resting. He rested lightly and without illusion. Then the
concierge was back with the glass of water, and he took
four tablets of the type that you take two, and he continued
resting as lightly as a hawk rests.

‘Domenico,’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘I have something here in an envelope that you can put
in the safe. It may be called for either by myself, in person,
or in writing, or by the person you have just put that call
through to. Would you like that in writing?’

‘No. It would be unnecessary.’

‘But what about you, boy? You’re not immortal, are
you?’

‘Fairly so,’ the concierge told him. ‘But I will put it in
writing, and after me, comes the Manager and the
Assistant Manager.’

‘Both good men,’ the Colonel agreed.

‘Wouldn’t you like to sit down, my Colonel?’

‘No. Who sits down except men and women in change
of life hotels? Do you sit down?’

‘No.’

‘I can rest on my feet, or against a God-damned tree.
My countrymen sit down, or lie down, or fall down. Give
them a few energy crackers to stall their whimpers.’

He was talking too much to regain confidence quickly.

‘Do they really have energy crackers?’

‘Sure. It has something in it that keeps you from
getting excited. It’s like the atomic bomb, only played
backwards.’

‘I can’t believe it.’

‘We have the most terrific military secrets that one
General’s wife ever told another. Energy crackers is the
least of it. Next time we will give all Venice botulism
from 56,000 feet. There’s nothing to it,’ the Colonel

167

ACROSS THE RIVER

explained. ‘They give you anthrax, and you give them
botulism.’

‘But it will be horrible.’

‘It will be worse than that,’ the Colonel assured him.
‘This isn’t classified. It’s all been published. And while it
goes on you can hear Margaret, if you tune in right, sing¬
ing the Star Spangled Banner on the radio. I think that
could be arranged. The voice I would not describe as a
big one. Not as we know voices who have heard the good
ones in our time. But everything is a trick now. The
radio can almost make the voice. And the Star Spangled
Banner is fool-proof until towards the last.’

‘Do you think they will drop anything here?’

‘No. They never have.’

The Colonel, who was four star general now, in his
wrath and in his agony and in his need for confidence,
but secured temporarily through the absorption of the
tablets, said, ^Ciao^ Domenico,’ and left the Gritti.

He figured it took twelve and one half minutes to reach
the place where his true love would probably arrive a
little late. He walked it carefully and at the speed he
should walk it. The bridges were all the same.

i68

CHAPTER XXIV

H I s true love was at the table at the exact time that
she said she would be. She w£is as beautiful as
always in the hard, morning light that came across
the flooded square, and she said. Tlease, Richard. Are
you all right? Please?’

‘Sure,’ the Colonel said. ‘You wonder beauty.’

‘Did you go to all our places in the market?’

‘Only a few of them. I did not go to where they have
the wild ducks.’

‘Thank you.’

‘For nothing,’ the Colonel said. ‘I never go there when
we are not together.’

‘Don’t you think I should go to the shoot?’

‘No. I am quite sure. Alvarito would have asked you
if he wanted you.’

‘He might not have asked me because he wanted me.’
‘That’s true,’ the Colonel said, and pondered that for
two seconds. ‘What do you want for breakfast?’

‘Breakfast is worthless here, and I don’t like the square
when it is flooded. It is sad and the pigeons have no place
to alight. It is only really fun towards the last when the
children play. Should we go and have breakfast at the
Gritti?’

‘Do you want to?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. We’ll have breakfast there. I’ve had mine
already.’

‘Really?’

‘I’ll have some coffee and hot rolls, and only feel them
with my fingers. Are you awfully hungry?’

‘Awfully,’ she said, truly.

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ACROSS THE RIVER

‘We’ll give breakfast the full treatment,’ the Colonel
said. ‘You’ll wish you had never heard of breakfast.’

As they walked, with the wind at their back, and her
hair blowing better than any banner, she asked him,
holding close, ‘Do you still love me in the cold, hard
Venice light of morning? It is really cold and hard isn’t it?’

‘I love you and it is cold and hard.’

‘I loved you all night when I was ski-ing in the dark.’

‘How do you do that?’

‘It is the same runs except that it is dark and the snow is
dark instead of light. You ski thesame; controlled and good.’

‘Did you ski all night? That would be many runs.’

‘No. Afterwards I slept soundly and well and I woke
happy. You were with me and you were asleep like a baby.’

‘I wasn’t with you and I was not asleep.’

‘You’re with me now,’ she said and held close and tight.

‘And we are almost there.’

‘Yes.’

‘Have I told you, yet, properly, that I love you?’

‘You told me. But tell me again.’

‘I love you,’ he said. ‘Take it frontally and formally
please.’

‘I take it anyway you want as long as it is true.’

‘That’s the proper attitude,’ he said. ‘You good, brave,
lovely girl. Turn your hair sideways once on top of this
bridge and let it blow obliquely.’

He had made a concession, with obliquely, instead of
saying, correctly, oblique.

‘That’s easy,’ she said. ‘Do you like it?’

He looked and saw the profile and the wonder early
morning colour and her chest upstanding in the black
sweater and her eyes in the wind and he said, ‘Yes, I
like it.’

‘I’m very glad,’ she said.

170

CHAPTER XXV

A t the Gritti, the Gran Maestro seated them at the table
which was beside the window that looked out on the
LGrand Canal. There was no one else in the dining¬
room.

The Gran Maestro was festive and well with the morn¬
ing. He took his ulcers day by day, and his heart the
same way. When they did not hurt he did not hurt either.

‘Your pitted compatriot eats in bed at his hotel, my
colleague tells me,’ he confided to the Colonel. ‘We may
have a few Belgians. “The bravest of these were the Bel¬
gians,” ’ he quoted. ‘There is a pair oipescecani from you
know where. But they are exhausted and I believe they
will eat, as pigs, in their room.’

‘An excellent situation report,’ the Colonel said. ‘Our
problem. Gran Maestro, is that I have already eaten in my
room as pitted does and as the pescecani will. But this
lady ~ ’

‘Young girl,’ interrupted the Gran Maestro with his
whole-face smile. He was feeling very good since it was a
completely new day.

‘This very young lady wants a breakfast to end break¬
fasts.’

‘I understand,’ the Gran Maestro said and he looked at
Renata and his heart rolled over as a porpoise does in the
sea. It is a beautiful movement and only a few people in
this world can feel it and accomplish it.

‘What do you want to eat, Daughter?’ the Colonel
asked, looking at her early morning, un-retouched dark
beauty.

‘Everything.’

‘Would you give any suggestions?’

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ACROSS THE RIVER

‘Tea instead of coffee and whatever the Gran Maestro
can salvage.’

Tt won’t be salvage, Daughter,’ said the Gran Maestro.

‘I’m the one who calls her Daughter.’

‘I said it honestly,’ the Gran Maestro said. ‘We can
make or fabricar rognons grilled with champignons dug by
people I know. Or, raised in damp cellars. There can be
an omelet with truffles dug by pigs of distinction. There
can be real Canadian bacon from maybe Canada, even.’

‘Wherever that is,’ the girl said happily andunillusioncd.

‘Wherever that is,’ said the Colonel seriously. ‘And I
know damn well where it is.’

‘I think we should stop the jokes now and get to the
breakfast.’

‘If it is not un-maidenly I think so too.’

‘Mine is a decanted flask of the Valpolicella.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘Bring me one ration of the alleged Canadian bacon,’
the Colonel said.

He looked at the girl, since they were alone now, and
he said, ‘How are you, my dearest?’

‘Quite hungry, I suppose. But thank you for being
good for so long a time.’

‘It was easy,’ the Colonel told her in Italian.

172

CHAPTER XXVI

T hey sat there at the table and watched the early
stormy light over the Canal. The grey had turned to
a yellow grey, now, with the sun, and the waves were
working against the outgoing tide.

‘Mummy says she can’t live here too long at any time
because there are no trees,’ the girl said. ‘That’s why she
goes to the country.’

‘That’s why everyone goes to the country,’ the Colonel
said. ‘We could plant a few trees if we found a place with
a big enough garden.’

‘I like Lombardy poplars and plane trees the best, but I
am still quite uneducated.’

‘I like them, and cypresses and chestnut trees. The real
chestnut and the horse-chestnut. But you will never see
trees. Daughter, until we go to America. Wait till you
see a white pine or a ponderosa pine.’

‘Will we see them when we make the long trip and
stop at all the filling stations or comfort stations or what¬
ever they are called?’

‘Lodges and Tourist Camps,’ the Colonel said. ‘Those
others we stop at; but not for the night.’

‘I want so much for us to roll up to a comfort station
and plank down my money and tell them to fill her up and
check the oil, Mac, the way it is in American books or
in the films.’

‘That’s a filling station.’

‘Then what is a comfort station?’

‘Where you go, you know — ’

‘Oh,’ the girl said and blushed. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I want to learn American so much. But I suppose I shall
say barbarous things the way you do sometimes in Italian.’

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ACROSS THE RIVER

Tt is an easy language. The further West you go the
straighter and the easier it becomes.’

The Gran Maestro brought the breakfast and the odour
of it, although it did not spread through the room, due to
the silver covers on the dishes, came to them steady and
as broiled bacon and kidneys, with the dark lustreless
smell of grilled mushrooms added.

Tt looks lovely,’ the girl said. ‘Thank you very much.
Gran Maestro, Should I talk American?’ she asked the
Colonel. She extended her hand to the Gran Maestro
lightly, and fastly, so that it darted as a rapier does, and
said, ‘Put it there. Pal. This grub is tops.’

The Gran Maestro said, ‘Thank you, my lady.’

‘Should I have said chow instead of grub?’ the girl
asked the Colonel.

‘They are really interchangeable.’

‘Did they talk like that out West when you were a boy?
What would you say at breakfast?’

‘Breakfast was served, or offered up, by the cook. He
would say, “Come and get it, you sons of bitches, or I’ll
throw it away.” ’

‘I must learn that for in the country. Sometimes when
we have the British Ambassador and his dull wife for
dinner I will teach the footman, who will announce dinner,
to say, “Come and get it, you sons of bitches, or we will
throw it away.” ’

‘He’d devaluate,’ the Colonel said. ‘At any rate, it
would be an interesting experiment.’

‘Tellme something I can sayin true American to the pitted
one if he comes in. I will just whisper it in his ear as though
I were making a rendezvous, as they did in the old days.’

‘It would depend on how he looks. If he is very dejected
looking, you might whisper to him, “Listen, Mac. You
hired out to be tough, didn’t you?” ’

174

& INTO THE TREES

‘That’s lovely/ she said and repeated it in a voice she
had learned from Ida Lupino. ‘Can I say it to the Gran
Maestro?^

‘Sure. Why not. Gran Maestro!"

The Gran Maestro came over and leaned forward atten¬
tively.

‘Listen, Mac. You hired out to be tough, didn’t you?’
the girl hard-worded him.

T did indeed,’ the Gran Maestro said. ‘Thank you for
stating it so exactly.’

‘If that one comes in and you wish to speak to him after
he has eaten, just whisper in his ear, “Wipe the egg off
your chin, Jack, and straighten up and fly right.” ’

T’ll remember it and I’ll practise it at home.’

‘What are we going to do after breakfast?’

‘Should we go up and look at the picture and see if it
is of any value; I mean any good; in daylight?’

‘Yes,’ the Colonel said.

175

CHAPTER XXVII

U PSTAIRS the room was already done and the
Colonel, who had anticipated a possible messiness
of locale, was pleased.

"Stand by it once,’ he said. Then remembered to add,
"Please.’

She stood by it, and he looked at it from where he had
looked at it last night.

"There’s no comparison, of course,’ he said. "I don’t
mean likeness. The likeness is excellent.’

‘Was there supposed to be a comparison?’ the girl asked,
and swung her head back and stood there with the black
sweater of the portrait.

"Of course not. But last night, and at first light, I talked
to the portrait as though it were you.’

"That was nice of you and shows it has served some
useful purpose.’

They were lying now on the bed and the girl said to
him, ‘Don’t you ever close windows?’

‘No. Do you?’

"Only when it rains.’

‘How much alike are we?’

‘I don’t know. We never had much of a chance to find
out.’

"We’ve never had a fair chance. But we’ve had enough
of a chance for me to know.’

‘And when you know what the hell have you got?’ the
Colonel asked.

‘I don’t know. Something better than there is, I
suppose.’

‘Sure. We ought to try for that. I don’t believe in
limited objectives. Sometimes you’re forced to, though.’

176

& INTO THE TREES

‘What is your great sorrow?’

‘Other’s people’s orders,’ he said. ‘What’s yours?’

‘You.’

‘I don’t want to be a sorrow. I’ve been a sorry son of a
bitch many times. But I never was anybody’s sorrow.’

‘Well you are mine now.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’ll take it that way.’

‘You’re nice to take it that way. You’re very kind this
morning. I’m so ashamed about how things are. Please
hold me very close and let’s not talk, or think, about how
things might have been different.’

‘Daughter, that’s one of the few things I know how
to do.’

‘You know many, many things. Don’t say such a
thing.’

‘Sure,’ the Colonel said. ‘I know how to fight forwards
and how to fight backwards and what else?’

‘About pictures and about books and about life.’

‘That’s easy. You just look at the pictures without
prejudice, and you read the books with as open a mind
as you have, and you live life.’

‘Don’t take off your tunic, please.’

‘All right.’

‘You do anything when I say please.’

‘I have done things without.’

‘Not very often.’

‘No,’ the Colonel agreed. ‘Please is a pretty word.’

‘Please, please, please.’

"Per Piacere, It means for pleasure. I wish we always
talked Italian.’

‘We could in the dark. Although there are things that
say better in English,

‘I love you my last true and only love,’ she quoted.
‘When lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed. And out of

M A.R.i.T. 177

ACROSS THE RIVER

the cradle endlessly rocking. And come and get it, you
sons of bitches, or Fll throw it away. You don’t want
those in other languages do you, Richard?’

‘No.’

‘Kiss me again, please.’

‘Unnecessary please.’

‘I would probably end up as an unnecessary please
myself. That is the good thing about you going to die
that you can’t leave me.’

‘That’s a little rough,’ the Colonel said. ‘Watch your
beautiful mouth a little on that.’

‘I get rough when you get rough,’ she said. ‘You
wouldn’t want me to be completely otherwise?’

‘1 would not want you to be in any way other than
you are and I love you truly, finally and for good.’

‘You say nice things very clearly sometimes. What was
it happened with you and your wife, if I may ask?’

‘She was an ambitious woman and I was away too
much.’

‘You mean she went away, from ambition, when you
only were away from duty?’

‘Sure,’ the Colonel said and remembered, as unbitterly
as he could. ‘She had more ambition than Napoleon and
about the talent of the average High School Valedic¬
torian.’

‘Whatever that is,’ the girl said. ‘But let’s not speak
about her. I’m sorry I asked the question. She must be
sad that she is not with you.’

‘No. She is too conceited ever to be sad, and she
married me to advance herself in Army circles, and have
better contacts for what she considered her profession, or
her art. She was a journalist.’

‘But they arc dreadful,’ the girl said.

‘I agree.’

178

& INTO THE TREES

‘But you couldn’t have married a woman journalist
that kept on being that?’

T told you I made mistakes,’ the Colonel said.

‘Let’s talk about something nice.’

‘Let’s.’

‘But that was terrible. How could you have done such
a thing?’

‘I don’t know. I could tell you in detail but let’s
skip it.’

‘Please let’s skip it. But I had no idea it was something
as awful as that. You wouldn’t do such a thing now,
would you?’

‘I promise you, my sweet.’

‘But you don’t ever write to her?’

‘Of course not.’

‘You wouldn’t tell her about us, so she could write
about it?’

‘No. I told her about things once, and she wrote about
them. But that was in another country and besides the
wench is dead.’

‘Is she really dead?’

‘Deader than Phoebus the Phoenician. But she doesn’t
know it yet.’

‘What would you do if we were together in the Piazza
and you sa^v her?’

‘Fd look straight through her to show her how dead
she w^as.’

‘Thank you very much,’ the girl said. ‘You know that
another w^oman, or a woman in memory, is a terrible thing
for a young girl to deal with when she is still without
experience.’

‘There isn’t any other woman,’ the Colonel told her,
and his eyes were bad and remembering. ‘Nor is there
any woman of memory.’

179

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘Thank you very much/ the girl said. ‘When I look at
you I believe it truly. But please never look at me nor
think of me like that.’

‘Should we hunt her down and hang her to a high tree?’
the Colonel said with anticipation.

‘No. Let us forget her.’

‘She is forgotten/ the Colonel said. And, strangely
enough, she was. It was strange because she had been
present in the room for a moment, and she had very nearly
caused a panic; which is one of the strangest things there
is, the Colonel thought. He knew about panics.

But she was gone now, for good and for ever; cauterized;
exorcized and with the eleven copies of her re-classification
papers, in which was included the formal, notarized act
of divorcement, in triplicate.

‘She is forgotten,’ the Colonel said. It was quite true.

‘I’m so pleased,’ the girl said. T don’t know why they
ever let her into the hotel.’

‘We’re enough alike,’ the Colonel said. ‘We better not
carry it too God-damned far.’

‘You can hang her if you wish because she is why we
cannot marry.’

‘She’s forgotten,’ the Colonel told her. ‘Maybe she will
take a good look at herself in the mirror sometime and
hang herself’

‘Now that she is out of the room we should wish her no
bad luck. But, as a good Venetian, I wish that she were
dead.’

‘So do I,’ the Colonel said. ‘And now, since she is not,
let us forget her for keeps.’

‘For keeps and for always,’ the girl said. ‘I hope that
is the correct diction. Or in Spanish para sempre.'

^Para sempre and his brother,’ the Colonel said.

i8o

CHAPTER XXVIII

T hey lay together now and did not speak and the
Colonel felt her heart beat. It is easy to feel a heart
beat under a black sweater knitted by someone in
the family, and her dark hair lay, long and heavy, over
his good arm. It isn’t heavy, he thought, it is lighter than
anything there is. She lay, quiet and loving, and whatever
it was that they possessed was in complete communica¬
tion. He kissed her on the mouth, gently and hungrily,
and then it was as though there was static, suddenly,
when communications had been perfect.

‘Richard,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry about things.’

‘Never be sorry,’ the Colonel said. ‘Never discuss
casualties, Daughter.’

‘Say it again,’

‘Daughter.’

‘Will you tell me some happy things I can have for
during the week and some more of war for my educa¬
tion?’

‘Let’s skip war.’

‘No. I need it for my education.’

‘I do too,’ the Colonel said. ‘Not manoeuvres. You
know, in oar army once, a general officer through chi¬
canery obtained the plan of the manoeuvre. He antici¬
pated every move of the enemy force and comported
himself so brilliantly that he was promoted over many
better men. And that was why we got smacked one time.
That and the prevalence of week-ends.’

‘We’re on a week-end now.’

‘I know,’ the Colonel said. T can still count up to
seven.’

‘But are you bitter about everything?’

i8i

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘No. It is just that I am half a hundred years old and I
know things.*

‘Tell me something more about Paris because I love to
think of you and Paris in the week.’

‘Daughter, why don’t you lay off Paris?’

‘But I’ve been in Paris, and I will go back there again,
and I want to know. It is the loveliest city in the world,
next to our own, and I want to know some things truly
to take with me.’

‘We will go together and I will tell you there.’

‘Thank you. But tell me a little now for this week
only.’

‘Leclerc was a high-born jerk as I think that I’ve ex¬
plained. Very brave, very arrogant and extremely ambi¬
tious. He is dead, as I said.’

‘Yes, you told me.’

‘They say you should never speak ill of the dead. But I
think it is the best time to speak truly of them. I have
never said anything of a dead that I would not say to his
face,’ and he added, ‘in spades.’

‘Let’s not talk about him. I have re-classified him in
my mind.’

‘What do you want then; picturesque?’

‘Yes please. I have bad taste from reading the illus¬
trated papers. But I will read Dante all week while you
are gone. I’ll go to mass each morning. That should be
enough.’

‘Go to Harry’s before lunch too.’

‘I will,’ she said. ‘Please tell me some picturesque.’

‘Don’t you think we might better just go to sleep?’

‘How can we go to sleep now when we have so little
time? Feel this,’ she said and pushed her whole head up
under his chin until she forced his head back.

‘All right, I’ll talk.’

182

& INTO THE TREES

^Give me your hand first to hold. Fll have it in my hand
when I read the Dante and do the other things.’

‘Dante was an execrable character. More conceited
than Leclerc.’

T know. But he did not write execrably.’

‘No. Leclerc could fight too. Excellently.’

‘Now tell me.’

Her head was on his chest now, and the Colonel said,
‘Why did you not want me to take off the tunic?’

‘I like to feel the buttons. Is it wrong?’

‘I’ll be a sad son of a bitch,’ the Colonel said. ‘How
many people fought in your family?’

‘Everybody,’ she said. ‘Always. They were traders as
well and several of them were Doges of this city as you
know.’

‘But they all fought?’

‘All,’ she said. ‘As far as I know.’

‘O.K.,’ the Colonel said. ‘I’ll tell you any God-damn
thing you want to know.’

‘Just something picturesque. As bad or worse than in
the illustrated papers.’

^Domenica Del Corriere or Tribuna IllustrataV

‘Worse, if possible.’

‘Kiss me first.’

She kissed him kind, and hard, and desperately, and the
Colonel could not think about any fights or any pictur¬
esque or strange incidents. He only thought of her and
how she felt and how close life comes to death when there
is ecstasy. And what the hell is ecstasy and what’s ecstasy’s
rank and serial number? And how does her black sweater
feel? And who made all her smoothness and delight and
the strange pride and sacrifice and wisdom of a child?
Yes, ecstasy is what you might have had and instead you
draw sleep’s other brother.

183

ACROSS THE RIVER

Death is a lot of ★ , he thought. It comes to you in
small fragments that hardly show where it has entered. It
comes, sometimes, atrociously. It can come from unboiled
water; an un-pulled-up mosquito boot, or it can come
with the great, white-hot, clanging roar we have lived
with. It comes in small cracking whispers that precede
the noise of the automatic weapon. It can come with the
smoke-emitting arc of the grenade, or the sharp, cracking
drop of the mortar.

I have seen it come, loosening itself from the bomb rack,
and falling with that strange curve. It comes in the
metallic rending crash of a vehicle, or the simple lack of
traction on a slippery road.

It comes in bed to most people, I know, like love’s
opposite number. I have lived with it nearly all my life
and the dispensing of it has been my trade. But what can
I tell this girl now on this cold, windy morning in the
Gritti Palace Hotel?

‘What would you like to know. Daughter?’ he asked
her.

‘Everything.’

‘All right,’ the Colonel said. ‘Here goes.’

184

CHAPTER XXIX

T hey lay on the pleasantly hard, new-made bed
with their legs pressed tight against one another, and
her head was on his chest, and her hair spread across
his old hard neck; and he told her.

‘We landed without much opposition. They had the
true opposition at the other beach. Then we had to link
up with the people who had been dropped, and take and
secure various towns, and then we took Cherbourg. This
was difficult, and had to be done very fast, and the orders
were from a General called Lightning Joe that you never
would have heard of. Good General.’

‘Go on, please. You spoke about Lightning Joe before.’
‘After Cherbourg we had everything. I took nothing
but an admiral’s compass because I had a small boat at
that time on Chesapeake Bay. But we had all the Wehr-
macht stamped Martell and some people had as much as
six million German-printed French francs. They were
good until a year ago, and at that time they were worth
fifty to the dollar, and many a man has a tractor now
instead of simply one mule who knew how to send them
home through his Esses, or sometimes his Gs.

‘I never stole anything except the compass because I
thought it was bad luck to steal, unnecessarily, in war.
But I drank the cognac and I used to try to figure out the
different corrections on the compass when I had time.
The compass was the only friend I had, and the telephone
was my life. We had more wire strung than there are
★ in Texas.’

‘Please keep telling me and be as little rough as you
can. I don’t know what the word means and I don’t want
to know.’

185

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘Texas is a big state/ the Colonel said. ‘That is why I
used it and its female population as a symbol. You cannot
say more ★ than Wyoming because there are less than
thirty thousand there, perhaps, hell, make it fifty, and
there was a lot of wire, and you kept stringing it and
rolling it up, and stringing it again.’

‘Go on.’

‘We will cut to the break-through,’ the Colonel said.
‘Please tell me if this bores you.’

‘No.’

‘So we made the mucking break-through,’ the Colonel
said, and now his head was turned to her head, and he
was not lecturing; he was confessing.

‘The first day most of them came over and dropped the
Christmas tree ornaments that confuse the other people’s
radar and it was called off. We were ready to go but they
called it off. Quite properly I am sure. I love the very
highest brass like I love the pig’s you know.’

‘Tell it to me and don’t be bad.’

‘Conditions were not propitious,’ the Colonel said. ‘So
the second day we were for it, as our British cousins, who
could not fight their way out of a wet tissue towel, say,
and over came the people of the wild, blue yonder.

‘They were still taking off from the fields where they
lived on that green-grassed aircraft carrier that they called
England, when we saw the first of them.

‘Shining, bright and beautiful, because they had
scraped the invasion paint by then, or maybe they had
not. My memory is not exact about this part.

‘Anyway, Daughter, you could see the line of them
going back towards the east further than you could see. It
was like a great train. They were high in the sky and never
more beautiful. I told my S-2 that we should call them the
Valhalla Express. Are you tired of it?’

186

& INTO THE TREES

‘No. I can see the Valhalla Express. We never saw it
in such numbers. But we saw it. Many times.’

‘We were back two thousand yards from where we were
to take off from. You know what two thousand yards is,
Daughter, in a war when you are attacking?’

‘No. How could I?’

‘Then the front part of the Valhalla Express dropped
coloured smoke and turned and went home. This smoke
was dropped accurately, and clearly showed the target
which was the Kraut positions. They were good positions
and it might have been impossible to move him out of
them without something mighty and picturesque such as
we were experiencing.

‘Then, Daughter, the next sections of the Valhalla Ex¬
press dropped everything in the world on the Krauts and
where they lived and worked to hold us up. Later it
looked as though all of the earth had erupted and the
prisoners that we took shook as a man shakes when his
malaria hits him. They were very brave boys from the
Sixth Parachute Division and they all shook and could
not control it though they tried.

‘So you can see it was a good bombing. Just the thing
we always need in this life. Make them tremble in the
fear of justice and of might.

‘So then. Daughter, not to bore you, the wind was from
the east and the smoke began to blow back in our direc¬
tion. The heavies were bombing on the smoke line and
the smoke line was now over us. Therefore they bombed
us the same as they had bombed the Krauts. First it was
the heavies, and no one need ever worry about hell who
was there that day. Then, to really make the break¬
through good and to leave as few people as possible on
either side, the mediums came over and bombed who
was left. Then we made the break-through as soon as the

187

ACROSS THE RIVER

Valhalla Express had gone home, stretching in its beauty
and its majesty from that part of France to all over
England.’

If a man has a conscience, the Colonel thought, he might
think about air-power some time.

‘Give me a glass of that Valpolicella,’ the Colonel said,
and remembered to add, ‘please.’

‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Be comfortable, honey dog,
please. You asked me to tell you.’

‘I’m not your honey dog. That must be someone else.’

‘Correct. You’re my last and true and only love. Is
that correct? But you asked me to tell you.’

‘Please tell me,’ the girl said. ‘I’d like to be your honey
dog if I knew how to do it. But I am only a girl from this
town that loves you.’

‘We’ll operate on that,’ the Colonel said. ‘And I love
you. I probably picked up that phrase in the Philippines.’

‘Probably,’ the girl said. ‘But I would rather be your
straight girl.’

‘You are,’ the Colonel said. ‘Complete with handles
and with the flag on top.’

‘Please don’t be rough,’ she said. ‘Please love me true
and tell me as true as you can, without hurting yourself
in any way.’

‘I’ll tell you true,’ he said. ‘As true as I can tell and let
it hurt who it hurts. It is better that you hear it from me
if you have curiosity on this subject, than that you read it
in some book with stiff covers.’

‘Please don’t be rough. Just tell me true and hold me
tight and tell me true until you are purged of it; if that
can be.’

‘I don’t need to purge,’ he said. ‘Except heavies being
used tactically. I have nothing against them if they use
them right even if they kill you. But for ground support

i88

& INTO THE TREES

give me a man like Pete Quesada. There is a man who
will boot them in.’

‘Please.’

‘If you ever want to quit a beat-up character like me
that guy could give you ground support.’

‘You are not beat-up, whatever that is, and I love
you.’

‘Please give me two tablets from that bottle and pour
the glass of Valpolicella that you neglected to pour, and
I will tell you some of the rest of it.’

‘You don’t have tO; You don’t have to tell me and I
know now it is not good for you. Especially not the
Valhalla Express day. I am not an inquisitor; or what¬
ever the female of inquisitor is. Let us just lie quietly and
look out of the window, and watch and see what happens
on our Grand Canal.’

‘Maybe we better. Who gives a damn about the war
anyway?’

‘You and me, maybe,’ .she said and stroked his head.
‘Here are the two things from the square bottle. Here is
the glass of decanted vino. I’ll send you better from our
own estates. Please let us sleep a little while. Please be a
good boy and we just lie together and love each other.
Please put your hand here.’

‘My good or my bad?’

‘Your bad,’ the girl said. ‘The one I love and must
think about all week. I cannot keep it like you keep the
stones.’

‘They’re in the safe,’ the Colonel said. ‘In your name,’
he added.

‘Let’s just sleep and not talk about any material things
nor any sorrows.’

‘The hell with sorrows,’ the Colonel said with his eyes
closed and his head resting lightly on the black sweater

189

ACROSS THE RIVER

that was his fatherland. You have to have some damned
fatherland, he thought. Here is mine.

‘Why aren’t you President?’ the girl asked. ‘You could
be an excellent president.’

‘Me President? I served in the Montana National
Guard when I was sixteen. But I never wore a bow tie in
my life and I am not, nor ever have been, an unsuccessful
haberdasher. I have none of the qualifications for the
Presidency. I couldn’t even head the opposition even
though I don’t have to sit on telephone books to have my
picture taken. Nor am I a no-fight general. Hell, I never
even was at SHAEF. I couldn’t even be an elder states¬
man. I’m not old enough. Now we are governed in some
way, by the dregs. We are governed by what you find in
the bottom of dead beer glasses that whores have dunked
their cigarettes in. The place has not even been swept out
yet and they have an amateur pianist beating on the box.’

‘I don’t understand it because my American is so incom¬
plete. But it sounds awful. But don’t be angry about it.
Let me be angry for you.’

‘Do you know what an unsuccessful haberdasher is?’

‘No.’

‘It is not discreditable. There are many of them in our
country. There is at least one in every town. No,
Daughter, I am only a fighting soldier and that is the
lowest thing on earth. In that you run for Arlington, if
they return the body. The family has a choice.’

‘Is Arlington nice?’

‘I don’t know,’ the Colonel said. ‘I was never buried
there.’

‘Where would you like to be buried?’

‘Up in the hills,’ he said, making a quick decision. ‘On
any part of the high ground where we beat them.’

‘I suppose you should be buried on the Grappa.’

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& INTO THE TREES

‘On the dead angle of any shell-pocked slope if they
would graze cattle over me in the summer time.’

‘Do they have cattle there?’

‘Sure. They always have cattle where there is good
grass in the summer, and the girls of the highest houses,
the strong built ones, the houses and the girls, that resist
the snow in winter, trap foxes in the fall after they bring
the cattle down. They feed from pole-stacked hay.’

‘And you don’t want Arlington or Pere Lachaise or
what we have here?’

‘Your miserable boneyard.’

‘I know it is the most unworthy thing about the town.
The city rather. I learned to call cities towns from you.
But I will see that you go where you wish to go and I will
go with you if you like.’

‘I would not like. That is the one thing we do alone.
Like going to the bathroom.’

‘Please do not be rough.’

‘I meant that I would love to have you with me. But
it is very egotistical and an ugly process.’

He stopped, and thought truly, but off-key, and said,
‘No. You get married and have five sons and call them
all Richard.’

‘The lion-hearted,’ the girl said, accepting the situation
without even a glance, and playing what there was she
held as you put down all the cards, having counted
exactly.

‘The louse-hearted,’ the Colonel said. ‘The unjust bitter
criticizer who speaks badly of everyone.’

‘Please don’t be rough in talking,’ the girl said. ‘And
remember you speak worst of all about yourself. But hold
me as close as we can and let’s think about nothing.’

He held her as close as he could and he tried to think
about nothing.

CHAPTER XXX

T h e Colonel and the girl lay quietly on the bed and
the Colonel tried to think of nothing; as he had
thought of nothing so many times in so many places.
But it was no good now. It would not work any more
because it was too late.

They were not Othello and Desdemona, thank God,
although it was the same town and the* girl was certainly
better looking than the Shakespearean character, and the
Colonel had fought as many, or more times than the
garrulous Moor.

They are excellent soldiers, he thought. The damned
Moors. But how many of them have we killed in my time?
I think we killed more than a generation if you count the
final Moroccan campaign against Abdel Krim. And each
one you have to kill separately. Nobody ever killed them
in mass, as we killed Krauts before they discovered Einheit,
‘Daughter,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to really tell you,
so you will know, if I am not rough telling it?’

‘I would rather have you tell me than anything. Then
we can share it.’

‘It cuts pretty thin for sharing,’ the Colonel said. ‘It’s
all yours, Daughter. And it’s only the high-lights. You
wouldn’t understand the campaigns in detail, and few
others would. Rommel might. But they always had him
under wraps in France and, besides, we had destroyed his
communications. The two tactical air-forces had; ours
and the RAF. But I wish I could talk over certain things
with him. I’d like to talk with him and with Ernst Udet.’

‘Just tell me what you wish and take this glass of
Valpolicella and stop if it makes you feel badly. Or don’t
tell it at all.’

192

& INTO THE TREES

T was a spare-parts Colonel at the start,’ the Colonel
explained carefully. ‘They are hang-around Colonels,
which are given to a Division Commander to replace one
that he may have killed, or that is relieved. Almost none
are killed; but many are relieved. All the good ones are
promoted. Fairly fast when the thing starts to move sort
of like a forest fire.’

‘Go on, please. Should you take your medicine?’

‘The hell with my medicine,’ the Colonel said. ‘And
the hell with SHAEF.’

‘You explained that to me,’ the girl said.

‘I wish the hell you were a soldier with your straight
true brain and your beauty memory.’

‘I would wish to be a soldier if I could fight under
you.’

‘Never fight under me,’ the Colonel said. ‘I’m cagey.
But I’m not lucky. Napoleon wanted them lucky and he
was right.’

‘We’ve had some luck.’

‘Yes,’ the Colonel said. ‘Good and bad.’

‘But it was all luck.’

‘Sure,’ the Colonel said. ‘But you can’t fight on luck.
It is just something that you need. The people who fought
on luck are all gloriously dead like Napoleon’s horse
cavalry.’

‘Why do you hate cavalry? Almost all the good boys I
know were in the three good regiments of cavalry, or in
the navy.’

‘I don’t hate anything, Daughter,’ the Colonel said,
and drank a little of the light, dry, red wine which was
as friendly as the house of your brother, if you and your
brother are good friends. ‘I only have a point of view,
arrived at after careful consideration, and an estimate of
their capabilities.’

N A.R.i.T. 193

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘Are they not really good?’

‘They are worthless,’ the Colonel said. Then, remem¬
bering to be kind added, ‘In our time.’

‘Every day is a disillusion.’

‘No. Every day is a new and fine illusion. But you can
cut out everything phony about the illusion as though you
would cut it with a straight-edge razor.’

‘Please never cut me.’

‘You’re not cut-able.’

‘Would you kiss me and hold me tight, and we both
look at the Grand Canal where the light is lovely now,
and you tell me more?’

When they were looking out at the Grand Canal where
the light was, indeed, lovely, the Colonel went on, ‘I got
a regiment because the Commanding General relieved a
boy that I had known since he was eighteen years old.
He was not a boy any more, of course. It was too much
regiment for him and it was all the regiment I ever could
have hoped for in this life until I lost it.’ He added,
‘Under orders, of course.’

‘How do you lose a regiment?’

‘When you are working around to get up on the high
ground and all you would have to do is send in a flag, and
they would talk it over and come out if you were right.
The professionals are very intelligent and these Krauts
were all professionals; not the fanatics. The phone rings
and somebody calls from Corps who has his orders from
Army or maybe Army Group or maybe even SHAEF,
because they read the name of the town in a newspaper,
possibly sent in from Spa, by a correspondent, and the
order is to take it by assault. It’s important because it got
into the newspapers. You have to take it.

‘So you leave one company dead along a draw. You
lose one company complete and you destroy three others.

& INTO THE TREES

The tanks get smacked even as fast as they could move and
they could move fast both ways.

‘They hit them one, two, three, four, five.

‘Three men usually get out of the five (that are inside)
and they run like broken-field runners that have been
shaken loose in a play when you are Minnesota and the
others are Beloit, Wisconsin.

‘Do I bore you?’

‘No. I do not understand the local allusions. But you
can explain them when you care to. Please keep on
telling me.’

‘You get into the town, and some handsome jerk puts
an air mission on you. This mission might have been
ordered and never cancelled. Let’s give everyone the
benefit of the doubt. I’m just telling you about things in
a general way. It is better not to be specific and a civilian
wouldn’t understand it. Not even you.

‘This air mission does not help much, Daughter. Be¬
cause maybe you cannot stay in the town because you
have got too few people in, and by now, you are digging
them out of rubble; or leaving them in rubble. There are
two schools of thought on that. So they say to take it by
assault. They repeat this.

‘This has been rigidly confirmed by some politician in
uniform who has never killed in his life, except with his
mouth over the telephone, or on paper, nor ever has been
hit. Figure him as our next President if you want him.
Figure him any way you like. But figure him and his
people, the whole great business establishment, so far back
that the best way to communicate with them rapidly would
be by racing carrier pigeons. Except, with the amount of
security they maintained for their proper persons, they
would probably have their anti-aircraft shoot the pigeons
down. If they could hit them.

195

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘So you do it again. Then I will tell you what it looks like.’

The Colonel looked up at the play of the light on the
ceiling. It was reflected, in part, from the Canal. It made
strange, but steady movements, changing, as the current
of a trout stream changes, but remaining, still changing
as the sun moved.

Then he looked at his great beauty, with her strange,
dark, grown-up child’s face that broke his heart, that he
would be leaving before 1335 (that was sure) and he said,
‘Let’s not talk about the war. Daughter.’

‘Please,’ she said. ‘Please. Then I will have it all this
week.’

‘That’s a short sentence. I mean using the word sen¬
tence as a jail sentence.’

‘You don’t know how long a week can be when you
are nineteen.’

‘Several times I have known how long an hour can be,’
the Colonel said. ‘I could tell you how long two minutes
and a half can be.’

‘Please tell me.’

‘Well I had two days’ leave in Paris between the
Schnee-Eifel fight and this one, and due to my friendship
with one or two people I was privileged to be present at
some sort of a meeting, where only the accredited and
trusted were present, and General Walter Bedell Smith
explained to all of us how easy the operation that later
took the name of Hurtgen Forest would be. It was not
really Hurtgen Forest. That was only a small sector. It
was the Stadtswald and it was where the German High
Command had figured, exactly, to fight after Aachen had
been taken and the road into Germany breached. I hope
I am not boring you.’

‘You never bore me. Nothing about fighting bores me
except lies.’

196

& INTO THE TREES

‘You’re a strange girl’.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ve known that for quite a long time.’

‘Would you really like to fight?’

‘I don’t know if I could do it. But I could try if you
taught me.’

‘I’ll never teach you. I’ll just tell you anecdotes.’

‘Sad stories of the death of kings.’

‘No. GIs somebody christened them. God how I hate
that word and how it was used. Comic book readers. All
from some certain place. Most of them there unwillingly.
Not all. But they all read a paper called “The Stars and
Stripes” and you had to get your unit into it, or you were
unsuccessful as a commander. I was mostly unsuccessful.
I tried to like the correspondents and there were some very
good ones present at this meeting. I will not name names
because I might omit some fine ones and that would be
unjust. There were good ones that I don’t remember.
Then, there were draft dodgers, phonies who claimed they
were wounded if a piece of spent metal ever touched them,
people who wore the purple heart from jeep accidents,
insiders, cowards, liars, thieves and telephone racers.
There were a few deads missing from this briefing. They
had deads too. A big percentage. But none of the deads
were present as I said. They had women at it though in
wonderful uniforms.’

‘But how did you ever marry one?’

‘By mistake 2 ls I explained before.’

‘Go on and tell me.’

‘There were more maps in the room than Our Lord
could read on his best day,’ the Colonel continued. ‘There
were the Big Picture, the Semi-Big Picture and the Super-
Big-Picturc. All these people pretended to understand
them, as did the boys with the pointers, a sort of half-arsed
billiard cue that they used for explanation.’

'97

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘Don’t say rough words. I don’t know, even, what half-
arsed means.’

‘Shortened, or abbreviated in an inefficient manner,’
the Colonel explained. ‘Or deficient as an instrument, or
in character. It’s an old word. You could probably find
it in Sanscrit.’

‘Please tell me.’

‘What for? Why should I perpetuate ignominy just
with my mouth?’

‘I’ll write it if you want. I can write truly what I hear
or think. I would make mistakes of course.’

‘You are a lucky girl if you can write truly what you
hear or think. But don’t you ever write one word of this.’

He resumed, ‘The place is full of correspondents dressed
according to their taste. Some are cynical and some are
extremely eager.

‘To ride herd on them, and to wield the pointers, there
is a group of pistol-slappers. We call a pistol-slapper a non-
fighting’man, disguised in uniform, or you might even call
it costume, who gets excited every time the weapon slaps
against his thighs. Incidentally, Daughter, the weapon,
not the old pistol, the real pistol, has missed more people
in combat than probably any weapon in the world.
Don’t ever let anyone give you one unless you want to
hit people on the head with it in Harry’s Bar.’

‘I never wanted to hit anyone; except perhaps Andrea.’

‘If you ever hit Andrea, hit him with the barrel; not
with the butt. The butt is awfully slow, and it misses and
if it lands you get blood on your hands when you put the
gun away. Also please do not ever hit Andrea because he
is my friend. I do not think he would be easy to hit
either.’

‘No. I do not think so either. Please tell me some more
about the meeting, or the assembly. I think I could

198

& INTO THE TREES

recognize a pistol-slapper now. But I would like to be
checked out more thoroughly.’

‘Well, the pistol-slappers, in all the pride of their pistol-
slappery, were awaiting the arrival of the great General
who was to explain the operation.

‘The correspondents were muttering, or twittering, and
the intelligent ones were glum or passively cheerful.
Everybody sat on folding chairs as for a Chautauqua
lecture. I’m sorry about these local terms; but we are a
local people.

‘In comes the General. He is no pistol-slapper, but a
big business man; an excellent politician, the executive
type. The Army is the biggest business, at that moment,
in the world. He takes the half-assed pointer, and he
shows us, with complete conviction, and without fore¬
bodings, exactly what the attack will be, why we are
making it, and how facilely it will succeed. There is no
problem.’

‘Go on,’ the girl said. ‘Please let me fill your glass and
you, please look at the light on the ceiling.’

‘Fill it and I’ll look at the light and I will go on.

‘This high pressure salesman, and I say this with no
disrespect, but with admiration for all his talents, or his
talent, also told what we would have of the necessary.
There would be no lack of anything. The organization
called SHAEF was then based on a town named Versailles
outside of Paris. We would attack to the east of Aachen
a distance of some 380 kilometres from where they were
based.

‘An army can get to be huge; but you can close up a
little bit. They finally went as far forward as Rheims
which was 240 kilometres from the fighting. That was
many months later.

‘I understand the necessity of the big executive being

199

ACROSS THE RIVER

removed from contact with his working people. I under¬
stand about the size of the army and the various problems.
I even understand logistics which is not difficult. But no
one ever commanded from that far back in history.’

‘Tell me about the town.’

T’ll tell you/ the Colonel said. ‘But I don’t want to
hurt you.’

‘You never hurt me. We are an old town and we had
fighting men, always. We respect them more than all
others and I hope we understand them a little. We also
know they are difficult. Usually, as people, tliey are very
boring to women.’

‘Do I bore you?’

‘What do you think?’ the girl asked.

‘I bore myself, Daughter.’

‘I don’t think you do, Richard, you would not have
done something all your life if you were bored by it. Don’t
lie to me please, darling, when we have so little time.’

‘I won’t.’

‘Don’t you see you need to tell me things to purge your
bitterness?’

‘I know I tell them to you.’

‘Don’t you know I want you to die with the grace of a
happy death? Oh, I’m getting all mixed up. Don’t let
me get too mixed up.’

‘I won’t. Daughter.’

‘Tell me some more please and be just as bitter as you
want.’

200

CHAPTER XXXI

‘y I s T E N , Daughter,’ the Colonel said. ‘Now we

I will cut out all references to glamour and to high

X—/brass, even from Kansas, where the brass grows
higher than osage-orange trees along your own road. It
bears a fruit you can’t eat and it is purely Kansan. No¬
body but Kansans ever had anything to do with it; except
maybe us who fought. We ate them every day. Osage
oranges,’ he added. ‘Only we called them K Rations.
They weren’t bad. G Rations were bad. Ten in ones
were good.

‘So we fought. It is dull but it is informative. This is the
way it goes if anyone is ever interested; which I doubt.

‘It goes like this: 1300 Red S-3: White jumped off on
time. Red said they were waiting to tie in behind White.
1305 (that is one o’clock and five minutes after in the
afternoon, if you can remember that. Daughter) Blue S-3,
you know what an S-3 is I hope, says, “Let us know when
you move.” Red said they were waiting to tie in behind
White.

‘You can see how easy it is,’ the Colonel told the girl.
‘Everybod\ ought to do it before breakfast.’

‘We cannot all be combat infantrymen,’ the girl told
him softly. ‘I respect it more than anything except good,
honest fliers. Please talk, I’m taking care of you.’

‘Good fliers are very good and should be respected as
such,’ the Colonel said.

He looked up at the light on the ceiling and he was com¬
pletely desperate at the remembrance of his loss of his
battalions, and of individual people. He could never hope
to have such a regiment, ever. He had not built it. He
had inherited it. But, for a time, it had been his great joy.

201

ACROSS THE RIVER

Now every second man in it was dead and the others nearly
all were wounded. In the belly, the head, the feet or the
hands, the neck, the back, the lucky buttocks, the unfor¬
tunate chest and the other places. Tree burst wounds
hit men where they would never be wounded in open
country. And all the wounded were wounded for life.

Tt was a good regiment,’ he said. ‘You might even say
it was a beautiful regiment until I destroyed it under other
people’s orders.’

‘But why do you have to obey them when you know
better?’

‘In our army you obey like a dog,’ the Colonel ex¬
plained. ‘You always hope you have a good master.’

‘What kind of masters do you get?’

‘I’ve only had two good ones so far. After I reached a
certain level of command, many nice people, but only two
good masters.’

‘Is that why you are not a General now? I would love
it if you were a General.’

‘I’d love it too,’ the Colonel said. ‘But maybe not with
the same intensity.’

‘Would you try to sleep, please, to please me?’

‘Yes,’ the Colonel said.

‘You see, I thought that if you slept you might get rid
of them, just being asleep.’

‘Yes. Thank you very much,’ he said.

There was nothing to it, gentlemen. All a man need
ever do is obey.

202

CHAPTER XXXIl

jrov slept quite well for a time,’ the girl told him,

I lovingly and gently. ‘Is there anything you would

X like me to do?’

‘Nothing,’ the Colonel said. ‘Thank you.’

Then he turned bad and he said, ‘Daughter I could
sleep good straight up and down in the electric chair with
my pants slit and my hair clipped. I sleep as, and when,
I need it.’

T can never be like that,’ the girl said, sleepily. ‘I sleep
when I am sleepy.’

‘You’re lovely,’ the Colonel told her. ‘And you sleep
better than anyone ever slept.’

‘I am not proud of it,’ the girl said, very sleepily. ‘It is
just something that I do.’

‘Do it, please.’

‘No. Tell me very low and soft and put your bad hand
in mine.’

‘The hell with my bad hand,’ the Colonel said. ‘Since
when was it so bad.’

‘It’s bad,’ the girl said. ‘Badder, or worse, than you
will ever know. Please tell me about combat without
being too brutal.’

‘An easy assignment,’ the Colonel said. ‘I’ll skip the
times. The weather is cloudy and the place is 986342.
What’s the situation? We are smoking the enemy with
artillery and mortar. S-3 advises that S-6 wants Red to
button up by 1700. S-6 wants you to button up and use
plenty of artillery. White reports that they are in fair
shape. S-6 informs that A company will swing around
and tie in with B.

‘B Company was stopped first by enemy action and

203

ACROSS THE RIVER

stayed there of their own accord. S-6 isn’t doing so good.
This is unofficial. He wants more artillery but there isn’t
any more artillery.

‘You wanted combat for what? I don’t know really
why. Or really know why. Who wants true combat? But
here it is, Daughter, on the telephone and later I will put
in the sounds and smells and anecdotes about who was
killed when and where if you want them.’

‘I only want what you will tell me.’

T’ll tell you how it was,’ the Colonel said, ‘and General
Walter Bedell Smith doesn’t know how it was yet. Though,
probably, I am wrong, as I have been so many times.’

‘I’m glad we don’t have to know him or the nylon-
smooth man,’ the girl said.

‘We won’t have to know them this side of hell,’ the
Colonel assured her. ‘And I will have a detail guarding
the gates of hell so that no such characters enter.’

‘You sound like Dante,’ she said sleepily.

‘I am Mister Dante,’ he said. ‘For the moment.’

And for a while he was and he drew all the circles. They
were as unjust as Dante’s but he drew them.

204

CHAPTER XXXIIl

‘ y WILL skip the detailed part since you arc, justifiably,

I and should be, sleepy/ the Colonel said. He watched,
X again, the strange play of the light on the ceiling.
Then he looked at the girl, who was more beautiful than
any girl that he had ever seen, ever.

He had seen them come and go, and they go faster,
when they go, than any other thing that flies. They can
go faster from fair beauty to the knocker’s shop than any
other animal, he thought. But I believe that this one
could hold the pace and stay the course. The dark ones
last the best, he thought and look at the bony structure
in that face. This one has a fine blood line too, and she
can go for ever. Most of our own lovely beauties come
from soda counters, and they do not know their grand¬
father’s last name, unless, maybe, it was Schultz. Or
Schlitz, he thought.

This is the wrong attitude to take, he said to himself;
since he did not wish to express any of these sentiments to
the girl, who would not like them anyway, and was
soundly sleepy now the way a cat is when it sleeps within
itself.

‘Sleep well, my dearest lovely, and I will just tell it for
nothing.’

The girl was asleep, still holding his bad hand, that he
despised, and he could feel her breathe, as the young
breathe when they are easily asleep.

The Colonel told her all about it; but he did not utter it.

So after I had the privilege of hearing General Walter
Bedell Smith explain the facility of the attack, we made it.
There was the Big Red One, who believed their own pub¬
licity. There was the Ninth, wliich was a better Division

205

ACROSS THE RIVER

than we were. There was us, who had always done it
when they asked for you to do it.

We had no time to read comic books, and we had no
time for practically nothing, because we always moved
before first light. This is difficult and you have to throw
away the Big Picture and be a division.

We wore a four-leaf clover, which meant nothing except
among ourselves, who all loved it. And every time I ever
see it the same thing happens in my inner guts. Some
people thought that it was ivy. But it was not. It was a
four-leaf clover disguised as ivy.

The orders were that we would attack with the Big Red
One, the First Infantry Division of the Army of the United
States, and they, and their Calypso singing PRO never let
you forget it. He was a nice guy. And it was his job.

But you get fed up with horse-dung unless you like the
aroma or the taste. I never liked it. Although I loved to
walk through cow-dung when I was a kid and feel it be¬
tween my toes. But horse-dung bores you. It bores me
very rapidly, and I can detect it at over one thousand
yards.

So we attacked, the three of us in line, exactly where
the Germans wished us to attack. We will not mention
General Walter Bedell Smith any further. He is not the
villain. He only made the promises and explained how it
would go. There are no villains, I presume, in a Demo¬
cracy. He was only just as wrong as hell. Period, he
added in his mind.

The patches had all been removed even as far back as
the rear echelon so that no Kraut would know that it was
us, the three he knew so well, who were going to attack.
We were going to attack with the three of us in line and
nothing in reserve. I won’t try to explain what that means.
Daughter. But it isn’t any good. And the place we were

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& INTO THE TREES

going to fight in, which I had taken a good look at, was
going to be Passchendaele with tree bursts. I say that too
much. But I think it too much.

The poor bloody twenty-eighth which was up on our
right had been bogged down for some time and so there
was pretty accurate information available about what con¬
ditions in those woods were going to be like. I think we
could conservatively describe them as unfavourable.

Then we were ordered to commit one regiment before
the attack started. That means that the enemy will get at
least one prisoner which makes all the taking off of the
Divisional patches silly. They would be waiting for the
old four leaf clover people who would go straight to hell
like a mule and do it for one hundred and five days.
Figures of course mean nothing to civilians. Nor to the
characters from SHAEF we never saw ever in these woods.
Incidentally, and of course these occurrences are always
incidental at the SHAEF level, the regiment was destroyed.
It was no one’s bloody fault, especially not the fault of the
man who commanded it. He was a man I would be glad
to spend half my time in hell with; and may yet.

It certainly would be odd if instead of going to hell, as
we always counted on, we should go to one of those Kraut
joints like Valhalla and not be able to get along with the
people. But maybe we could get a corner table with Rom¬
mel and Udet and it would be just like any winter-sports
hotel. It will probably be hell though and I don’t even
believe in hell.

Well anyway this regiment was rebuilt as American
regiments always are by the replacement system. I won’t
describe it since you can always read about it in a book
by somebody who was a replacement. It boils down, or
distils, to the fact you stay in until you are hit badly or
killed or go crazy and get section-eighted. But I guess it is

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ACROSS THE RIVER

logical and as good as any other, given the difficulties of
transport. However it leaves a core of certain un-killed
characters who know what the score is and no one of these
characters liked the look of these woods much.

You could sum up their attitude in this phrase, ‘Don’t
★ me, Jack.’

And since I had been an un-killed character for around
twenty-eight years I could understand their attitude. But
they were soldiers, so most of them got killed in those
woods and when we took the three towns that looked so
innocent and were really fortresses. They were just built
to tempt us and we had no word on them at all. To con¬
tinue to use the silly parlance of my trade: this could or
could not be faulty intelligence.

T feel terribly about the regiment,’ the girl said. She
had wakened and spoken straight from sleep.

‘Yes,’ said the Colonel. ‘So do I. Let’s drink to it once.
Then you go to sleep, Daughter, please. The war is over
and forgotten.’

Please don’t think that I am conceited, Daughter, he
said, without speaking. His true love was sleeping again.
She slept in a different way than his career girl had slept.
He did not like to remember how the career girl slept, yes
he did. But he wanted to forget it. She did not sleep
pretty, he thought. Not like this girl who slept as though
she were awake and alive; except she was asleep. Please
sleep well, he thought.

Who the hell are you to criticize career girls? he thought.
What miserable career did you attempt and have failed at?

I wished to be, and was, a General Officer in the Army
of the United States. I have failed and I speak badly of
all who have succeeded.

Then his contrition did not last, and he said to himself,
‘Except the brown-nosers, the five and ten and twenty

208

& INTO THE TREES

percenters and all the jerks from wherever who never
fought and hold commands.’

They killed several men from the Academy at Gettys¬
burg. That was the big kill day of all kill days, when
there was a certain amount of opposition by both
sides.

Don’t be bitter. They killed General McNair by mistake
the day the Valhalla Express came over. Quit being bitter.
People from the Academy were killed and there are
statistics to prove it.

How can I remember if I am not bitter?

Be as bitter as you want. And tell the girl, now silently,
and that will not hurt her, ever, because she is sleeping so
lovely. He said lovely to himself since his thinking was
often un-grammatical.

o

A.R.I.T.

209

CHAPTER XXXIV

S LEEP softly, my true love and when you wake, this
will be over and I will joke you out of trying to learn
details of the triste metier of war and we will go to buy
the little negro, or moor, carved in ebony with his fine
features and his jewelled turban. Then you will pin him
on and we will go to have a drink at Harry’s and see who¬
ever or whatever of our friends that will be afoot at that
hour.

We will lunch at Harry’s, or we’ll come back here and
I will be packed. We will say goodbye and I will get into
the motoscafo with Jackson and m^ike some cheerful crack
to the Gran Maestro and wave to any other members of the
Order and ten to one, the way I feel right now, or two will
get you thirty, we will not ever see one another again.

Hell, he said to no one and certainly not aloud, I’ve felt
this way before many fights and almost always at some
time in the fall of the year and always when leaving Paris.
Probably it doesn’t mean a thing.

Who gives a damn anyway except me and the Gran
Maestro and this girl; I mean at command level.

I give very much of a damn myself But I certainly
should be trained and adjusted by this time not to give a
muck for nothing; like the definition of a whore. A woman
who does not, etc.

But we won’t think about that boy, lieutenant, captain,
major, colonel, general, sir. We will just lay it on the line
once more and the hell with it and with its ugly face that
old Hieronymus Bosch really painted. But you can
sheathe your scythe, old brother death, if you have got a
sheath for it. Or, he added, thinking of Hurtgen now, you
can take your scythe and stick it.

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& INTO THE TREES

It was Passchendaele with tree bursts, he told nobody
except the wonder light on the ceiling. Then he looked at
the girl, to see that she was sleeping well enough so even
his thoughts would not hurt her.

Then he looked at the portrait and he thought, I have
her in two positions, lying down, turned a little on her
side and looking at me straight in front. Pm a lucky son
of a bitch and I should never be sad about anything.

21 I

CHAPTER XXXV

T h e first day there, we lost the three battalion com¬
manders. One killed in the first twenty minutes and
the other two hit later. This is only a statistic to a
journalist. But good battalion commanders have never
yet grown on trees; not even Christmas trees which was
the basic tree of that woods. I do not know how many
times we lost company commanders how many times
over. But I could look it up.

They aren’t made, nor grown, as fast as a crop of
potatoes is either. We got a certain amount of replace¬
ments but I can remember thinking that it would be
simpler and more effective, to shoot them in the area where
they de«trucked, than to have to try to bring them back from
where they would be killed and bury them. It takes men
to bring them back and gasoline and men to bury them.
These men might just as well be fighting and get killed too.

There was snow, or something, rain or fog, all the time
and the roads had been mined as many as fourteen mines
deep in certain stretches, so when the vehicles churned
down to a new string deeper, in another part of the mud,
you were always losing vehicles and, of course, the people
that went with them.

Besides just mortaring it all to hell and having all the
fire-lanes taped for machine gun and automatic weapon
fire, they had the whole thing worked out and canalized
so however you out-thought them you ran right into it.
They also shelled you with heavy artillery fire and with at
least one railway gun.

It was a place where it was extremely difficult for a man
to stay alive even if all he did was be there. And we were
attacking all the time and every day.

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& INTO THE TREES

Let’s not think about it. The hell with it. Maybe two
things I will think about and get rid of them. One was a
bare-assed piece of hill that you had to cross to get into
Grosshau.

Just before you had to make this run, which was under
observation with fires by 88s, there was a little piece of
dead ground where they could only hit you with a
howitzer, only interdicting fires, or, from the right by
mortar. When we cleaned it up we found they had good
observation for their mortars there too.

This was a comparatively safe place, Fm really not
lying, not me nor anybody else. You can’t fool those that
were in Hurtgen and if you lied they would know it the
minute you opened your mouth. Colonel or no Colonel.

We met a truck at this place and slowed up, and he had
the usual grey face and he said, ‘Sir, there is a dead G.I. in
the middle of the road up ahead and every time any
vehicle goes through they have to run over him and Fm
afraid it is making a bad impression on the troops.’

‘We’ll get him off the road.’

So we got him off the road.

And I can remember just how he felt, lifting him and
how he had been flattened and the strangeness of his
flatness.

Then there was one other thing, I remember. We had
put an awful lot of white phosphorus on the town before
we got in for good, or whatever you would call it. That
was the first time I ever saw a German dog eating a
roasted German Kraut. Later on I saw a cat working on
him too. It was a hungry cat, quite nice looking, basically.
You wouldn’t think a good German cat would eat a good
German soldier, would you. Daughter? Or a good German
dog eat a good German soldier’s ass which had been
roasted by white phosphorus.

213

ACROSS THE RIVER

How many could you tell like that? Plenty and what
good would they do? You could tell a thousand and they
would not prevent war. People would say we are not
fighting the Krauts and besides the cat did not eat me nor
my brother Gordon, because he was in the Pacific.
Maybe land crabs ate Gordon. Or maybe he just deli¬
quesced.

In Hurtgen they just froze up hard; and it was so cold
they froze up with ruddy faces. Very strange. They all
were grey and yellow like wax-works, in the summer. But
once the winter really came they had ruddy faces.

Real soldiers never tell anyone what their own dead
looked like, he told the portrait. And Fm through with
this whole subject. And what about that company dead
up the draw? What about them, professional soldier?

They’re dead, he said. And I can hang and rattle.

Now who would join me in a glass of Valpolicella?
What time do you think I should wake your opposite
number, you girl? We have to get to that jewellery place.
And I look forward to making jokes and to talking of the
most cheerful things.

What’s cheerful, portrait? You ought to know. You’re
smarter than I am, although you haven’t been around as
much.

All right, canvas girl, the Colonel told her, not saying it
aloud, we’ll drop the whole thing and in eleven minutes I
will wake the live girl up and we will go out on the town
and be cheerful and leave you here to be wrapped.

I didn’t mean to be rude. I was just joking roughly. I
don’t wish to be rude ever because I will be living with
you from now on. I hope, he added, and drank a glass of
the wine.

214

CHAPTER XXXVI

I T was a sharp, cold bright day and they stood outside
the window of the jeweller’s shop and studied the two
small negro heads and torsos that were carved in
ebony and adorned with studded jewels. One was as good
as the other, the Colonel thought.

‘Which do you like the best, Daughter?’

‘I think the one on the right. Don’t you think he has
the nicer face?’

‘They both have nice faces. But I think I would rather
have him attend you if it was the old days.’

‘Good. We’ll take him. Let’s go in and see them, I
must ask the price.’

‘I will go in.’

‘No, let me ask the price. They will charge me less than
they would charge you. After all you are a rich American.’
^Et toi^ Rimbaud?’

‘You’d make an awfully funny Verlaine,’ the girl told
him. ‘We’ll be some other famous characters.’

‘Go on in. Majesty and we’ll buy the God-damn jewel/
‘You wouldn’t make a very good Louis XVI either.’
‘I’d get up in that tumbril with you and still be able
to spit.’

‘Let’s forget all the tumbrils and everyone’s sorrows and
buy the small object and then we can walk to Cipriani’s
and be famous people.’

Inside the shop they looked at the two heads and she
asked the price and then, there was some very rapid talk
and the price was much lower. But still it was more
money than the Colonel had.

‘I’ll go to Cipriani’s and get some money.’

‘No,’ the girl said. Then to the clerk, ‘Put it in a box

215

ACROSS THE RIVER

and send it to Cipriani’s and say the Colonel said to pay
for it and hold it for him.’

‘Please,’ the clerk said. ‘Exactly as you say.’

They went out into the street and the sunlight and the
unremitting wind.

‘By the way,’ the Colonel said. ‘Your stones are in the
safe at the Gritti in your name.’

‘Your stones.’

‘No,’ he told her, not rough, but to make her understand
truly. ‘There are some things that a person cannot do.
You know about that. You cannot marry me and I
understand that, although I do not approve it.’

‘Very well,’ the girl said. ‘I understand. But would you
take one for a lucky stone?’

‘No. I couldn’t. They are too valuable.’

‘But the portrait has value.’

‘That is different.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘I suppose so. I think I begin to
understand.’

‘I would accept a horse from you, if I was poor and
young and riding very well. But I could not take a motor
car.’

‘I understand it now very well. Where can we go now,
at this minute, where you can kiss me?’

‘In this side alley, if you know no one who lives in it.’

‘I don’t care who lives in it. I want to feel you hold me
tight and kiss me.’

They turned into the side street and walked towards its
blind end.

‘Oh, Richard,’ she said. ‘Oh, my dear.’

‘I love you.’

‘Please love me.’

‘I do.’

The wind had blown her hair up and around his neck

216

& INTO THE TREES

and he kissed her once more with it beating silkily against
both his cheeks.

Then she broke away, suddenly and hard and looked at
him and said, T suppose we had better go to Harry’s.’

T suppose so. Do you want to play historical per¬
sonages?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Let us play that you are you and I
am me.’

‘Let’s play,’ the Colonel said.

217

CHAPTER XXXVII

T here was no one in Harry’s except some early
morning drinkers that the Colonel did not know and
two men that were doing business at the back of the

bar.

There were hours at Harry’s when it filled with the
people that you knew, with the same rushing regularity as
the tide coming in at Mont St. Michel. Except, the
Colonel thought, the hours of the tides change each day
with the moon and the hours at Harry’s are as the
Greenwich Meridian, or the standard metre in Paris, or
the good opinion the French military hold of them¬
selves.

‘Do you know any of these morning drinkers?’ he asked
the girl.

‘No. I am not a morning drinker so I have never met
them.’

‘They will be swept out when the tide comes in.’

‘No. They will leave, just as it comes, of their own
accord.’

‘Do you mind being here out of season?’

‘Did you think I was a snob because I come from an old
family? We’re the ones who are not snobs. The snobs arc
what you call jerks and the people with all the new money.
Did you ever see so much new money?’

‘Yes,’ the Colonel said. ‘I saw it in Kansas City when
I used to come in from Fort Riley to play polo at the
Country Club.’

‘Was it as bad as here?’

‘No, it was quite pleasant. I liked it and that part of
Kansas City is very beautiful.’

‘Is it really? I wish that we could go there. Do they

218

& INTO THE TREES

have the camps there too? The ones that we are going to
stay at?’

‘Surely. But we’ll stay at the Muehlebach hotel which
has the biggest beds in the world and we’ll pretend that
we are oil millionaires.’

‘Where will we leave the Cadillac?’

‘Is it a Cadillac now?’

‘Yes. Unless you want to take the big Buick Road-
master, with the Dynaflow drive. I’ve driven it all over
Europe. It was in that last Vogue you sent me.’

‘We’d probably better just use one at a time,’ the
Colonel said. ‘Whichever one we decide to use we will
park in the garage alongside the Muehlebach.’

‘Is the Muehlebach very splendid?’

‘Wonderful. You’ll love it. When we leave town we’ll
drive north to St. Joe and have a drink in the bar at the
Roubidoux, maybe two drinks and then we will cross the
river and go west. You can drive and we can spell each
other.’

‘What is that?’

‘Take turns driving.’

‘I’m driving now.’

‘Let’s skip the dull part and get to Chimney Rock and
go on to Scott’s Bluff and Torrington and after that you
will begin to see it.’

‘I have the road maps and the guides and that man who
says where to eat and the A.A.A. guide to the camps and
the hotels.’

‘Do you work on this much?’

‘I work at it in the evenings, with the things you sent me.
What kind of a licence will we have?’

‘Missouri. We’ll buy the car in Kansas City. We fly to
Kansas City, don’t you remember? Or we can go on a
really good train.’

219

ACROSS THE RIVER

T thought we flew to Albuquerque/

‘That was another time.’

‘Will we stop early in the afternoons at the best Motel
in the A.A.A. book and I make you any drinks you want
while you read the paper and Life and Time and Jiews-
week and I will read the new fresh Vogue and Harper's
BazaarT

‘Yes. But we come back here, too.’

‘Of course. With our car. On an Italian liner; which¬
ever one is best then. We drive straight here from
Genoa.’

‘You don’t want to stop anywhere for the night?’

‘Why? We want to get home to our own house.’

‘Where will our house be?’

‘We can decide that any time. There arc always plenty
of houses in this town. Would you like to live in the
country too?’

‘Yes,’ the Colonel said. ‘Why not?’

‘Then we could see the trees when we woke up. What
sort of trees will we see on this journey?’

‘Pine mostly and cotton-wood along the creeks and
aspen. Wait till you see the aspen turn yellow in the
fall.’

‘I’m waiting. Where will we stay in Wyoming?’

‘We’ll go to Sheridan first and then decide.’

‘Is Sheridan nice?’

‘It’s wonderful. In the car we’ll drive to where they
had the Wagon-Box Fight and I’ll tell you about it. We
will drive up, on the way to Billings, to where they killed
that fool George Armstrong Custer and you can see the
markers where everybody died and I’ll explain the fight
to you.’

‘That will be wonderful. Which is Sheridan more like;
Mantova or Verona or Vicenza?’

220

& INTO THE TREES

Tt isn’t like any of those. It is right up against the
mountains, almost like Schio.’

Ts it like Cortina then?’

‘Nothing like. Cortina is in a high valley in the moun¬
tains. Sheridan lays right up against them. There aren’t
any foot-hills to the Big Horns. They rise high out of the
plateau. You can see Cloud’s Peak.’

‘Will our cars climb them properly?’

‘You’re damn right they will. But I would much rather
not have any hydromatic drive.’

‘I can do without it,’ the girl said. Then she held her¬
self straight and hard not to cry. ‘As I can do without
everything else.’

‘What are you drinking?’ the Colonel said. ‘We haven’t
even ordered yet.’

‘I don’t think I will drink anything.’

‘Two very dry Martinis,’ the Colonel said to the bar¬
tender, ‘and a glass of cold water.’

He reached into his pocket and unscrewed the top of the
medicine bottle and shook two of the big tablets into his
left hand. With them in his hand, he screwed the top back
on the bottle. It was no feat for a man with a bad right
hand.

‘I said I didn’t want to drink anything.’

‘I know. Daughter. But I thought you might need one.
We can leave it on the bar. Or I can drink it myself.
Please,’ he said. ‘I did not mean to be brusque.’

‘We haven’t asked for the little negro that will look
after me.’

‘No. Because I did not want to ask for him until
Cipriani came in and I could pay for him.’

‘Is everything that rigid?’

‘With me, I guess,’ the Colonel said. ‘I’m sorry,
Daughter.’

22!

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘Say daughter three times straight/

JigUoy Daughter/

T don’t know,’ she said. T think we should just leave
here. I love to have people see us, but I don’t want to see
anybody.’

‘The box with the negro in it is on top of the cash
register.’

‘I know. I’ve seen it for some time.’

The bar-tender came, with the two drinks, frost cold
from the chilled coldness of the glasses and he brought the
glass of water.

‘Give me that small packet that came in my name and
is on top of the cash register,’ the Colonel said to him.
‘Tell Cipriani I will send him a cheque for it.’

He had made another decision.

‘Do you want your drink, Daughter?’

‘Yes. If you don’t mind me changing my mind too.’

They drank, after touching glasses very lightly, so
lightly that the contact was almost imperceptible.

‘You were right,’ she said feeling its warmth and its
momentary destruction of sorrow.

‘You were right too,’ he said and palmed the two
tablets.

He thought taking them with the water now, was in
bad taste. So, when the girl turned her head a moment to
watch a morning drinker go out the door, he swallowed
them with the Martini.

‘Should we go, Daughter?’

‘Yes. By all means.’

‘Bar-tender,’ the Colonel said. ‘How much are these
drinks? And do not forget to tell Cipriani I am sending
him a cheque for this nonsense.’

222

CHAPTER XXXVII

T hey ate lunch at the Gritti and the girl had un¬
wrapped the small ebony negro’s head and torso and
pinned it high on her left shoulder. It was about
three inches long and was quite lovely to look at if you
liked that sorfof thing. And if you don’t you are stupid,
the Colonel thought.

But do not even think rough, he told himself. You have
to be good now in every way until you say goodbye.
What a word, he thought, goodbye.

It sounds like a Valentine slogan.

Goodbye and bonne chance and hasta la vista. We always
just said merde and let it go at that. Farewell, he thought,
that is a nice word. It sings well, he thought. Farewell, a
long farewell and take it with you where you go. With
handles, he thought.

‘Daughter,’ he said. ‘How long has it been since I told
you that I loved you?’

‘Not since we sat at the table.’

‘I tell you now.’

She had combed her hair with patience when they came
into the hotel and she had gone into the room for women.
She disliked such rooms.

She had used lipstick to make the sort of mouth she
knew he most desired and she had said to herself, making
the mouth correctly. ‘Don’t think at all. Don’t think.
Above all don’t be sad because he is going now.’

‘You look beautiful.’

‘Thank you. I would like to be beautiful for you if I
could and if I could be beautiful.’

‘Italian is a lovely language.’

‘Yes. Mister Dante thought so.’

223

ACROSS THE RIVER

^Gran Maestro^'" the Colonel said. ‘What is there to eat
in this WirtschaftT

The Gran Maestro had been observing, without observ¬
ing, with affection and without envy.

‘Do you want meat, or fish?’

‘It’s Saturday,’ the Colonel said. ‘Fish is not compul¬
sory. So I’ll take it.’

‘It is sole,’ the Gran Maestro said. ‘What do you want,
my Lady?’

‘Whatever you decide. You know more about food
than I do and I like it all.’

‘Make a decision, Daughter.’

‘No. I would rather leave it to someone who knows
more than me. I have a boarding-school appetite.’

‘It will come as a surprise,’ the Gran Maestro said with
his long and loving face with the grey eyebrows over the
softly hooded eyes and the ever happy face of the old
soldier who is still alive and appreciates it.

‘Is there any news from the Order?’ the Colonel
asked.

‘Only that our leader, Himself, is in trouble. They have
confiscated everything he owns. Or at any rate they have
intervened.’

‘I hope it is not serious.’

‘We will have confidence in our leader. He has ridden
out worse tempests than this.’

‘To our leader,’ the Colonel said.

He raised his glass, which had been filled with the
decanted new and true Valpolicella. ‘Drink to him,
Daughter.’

‘I can’t drink to that swine,’ the girl said. ‘Besides I do
not belong to the Order.’

‘You are a member now,’ the Gran Maestro said. "^Por
merito di guerra.^

224

& INTO THE TREES

‘I’ll drink to him then,’ she said. ‘Am I really a member
of the Order?’

‘Yes,’ the Gran Maestro said. ‘You have not received
your parchment yet but I appoint your Super Honorary
Secretary . My Colonel will reveal to you the secrets of
the Order. Reveal, please, my Colonel.’

‘I reveal,’ the Colonel said. ‘There are no pitted folk
about?’

‘No. He is out with his Lady. Miss Baedeker.’

‘O.K. then,’ the Colonel said. ‘I will reveal. There is
only the major secret that you must know. Correct me,
Gran Maestro^ if I fall into error.’

‘Proceed to reveal,’ the Gran Maestro said.

‘I proceed to reveal,’ the Colonel said. ‘Listen care¬
fully, Daughter. This is the Supreme Secret. Listen.
“Love is love and fun is fun. But it is always so quiet when
the gold fish die.” ’

‘It has been revealed,’ the Gran Maestro said.

‘I am very proud and happy to be a member of the
Order,’ the girl said. ‘But it is, in a way, a rather rough
Order.’

‘It is indeed,’ the Colonel said. ‘And now. Gran Maestro,
what do we actually eat; without mysteries?’

‘Some crab enchillada, in the style of this town, but cold,
first. Served in the shell. Then sole for you and for my
lady a mixed grill. What vegetables?’

‘Whatever you have,’ the Colonel said.

The Gran Maestro was gone and the Colonel looked at
the girl and then at the Grand Canal outside the window
and he saw the magic spots and changes of light that were
even here, in the end of the bar, which had now by skilful
handling been made into a dining-room and he said, ‘Did
I tell you. Daughter, that I love you?’

‘You haven’ttoldmeforquite along time. But I love you.’

p A.R.i.T. 225

ACROSS THE RIVER

‘What happens to people that love each other?’

T suppose they have whatever they have and they are
more fortunate than others. Then one of them gets the
emptiness for ever.’

‘I won’t be rough,’ the Colonel said. ‘I could have
made a rough response. But please don’t have any
emptiness.’

‘I’ll try,’ the girl said. ‘I’ve been trying ever since I
woke up. I’ve tried ever since we knew each other.’

‘Keep on trying. Daughter,’ the Colonel said.

Then to the Gran Maestro^ who had reappeared, having
given his orders, the Colonel said, ‘A bottle of that vino
secco, from Vesuvius, for the small soles. We have the
Valpolicella for the other things.’

‘Can’t I drink the Vesuvius wine with my mixed grill?’
the girl asked.

‘Renata, Daughter,’ the Colonel said. ‘Of course. You
can do anything.’

‘I like to drink the same wines as you if I drink
wine.’

‘Good white wine is good with a mixed grill, at your
age,’ the Colonel told her.

‘I wish there was not such a difference in ages.’

‘I like it very much,’ the Colonel said. ‘Except,’ he
added. Then he did not continue and said, ‘Let’s be
fraiche et rose comme an jour de bataille,^

'Who said that?’

T haven’t the slightest idea. I picked it up when I took
a course at the College des Marechaux. A rather pretentious
title. But I graduated. What I know best I learned from
the Krauts, studying them and opposing them. They are
the best soldiers. But they always overreach.’

‘Let’s be like you said and pleeise tell me that you
love me.’

22(3

& INTO THE TREES

T love you/ he said. ‘That’s what you can base on. I
tell you truly.’

Tt is Saturday,’ she said. ‘And when is next Saturday?’

‘Next Saturday is a movable feast, Daughter. Find me a
man who can tell me about next Saturday.’

‘You could tell me if you would.’

‘I’ll ask the Gran Maestro^ maybe he knows. Gran
Maestro^ when will next Saturday come?’

‘A Pdques ou d, la Triniti^^ the Gran Maestro said.

‘Why don’t we have any smells from the kitchen to
cheer us up?’

‘Because the wind is from the wrong direction.’

Yes, the Colonel thought. The wind is from the wrong
direction and how lucky I would have been to have had
this girl instead of the woman that I pay alimony to, who
could not even make a child. She hired out for that. But
who should criticize whose tubes? I only criticize Good¬
rich or Firestone or General.

Keep it clean, he said to himself. And love your girl.

She was there beside him, wishing to be loved, if he had
any love to give.

It came back, as it always had, when he saw her and he
said, ‘How arc you with the crow wing hair and the break-
heart face?’

‘I’m fine/

^Gran Maestro,^ the Colonel said. ‘Produce a few
smells or something from your off-stage kitchen, even if
the wind is against us.’

227

CHAPTER XXXIX

T h e hall porter had telephoned, under the direction
of the concierge, and it was the same motor boat that
they had ridden in before.

T5 Jackson was in the boat with the luggage and the
portrait, which had been well and sturdily wrapped. It
was still blowing hard.

The Colonel had paid his bill and made the proper
tips. The people of the hotel had put the luggage and the
picture in the boat and seen that Jackson was seated
properly. Then they had retired.

‘Well, Daughter,’ the Colonel said.

‘Can’t I ride with you to the garage?’

‘It would be just as bad at the garage.’

‘Please let me ride to the garage.’

‘All right,’ the Colonel said. ‘It’s your show, really.
Get in.’

They did not talk at all and the wind was a stern wind
so that, with what speed the old calamity of a motor made,
there seemed almost to be no wind at all.

At the landing place, w^here Jackson was handing
the luggage to a porter and looking after the portrait
himself, the Colonel said, ‘Do you want to say goodbye
here?’

‘Do I have to?’

‘No.’

‘May I come up to the bar in the garage while they are
getting the car down?’

‘That will be worse.’

‘I do not care.’

‘Get that stuff up to the garage and have somebody
look after it until you get the car down,’ the Colonel said

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& INTO THE TREES

to Jackson. ‘Check on my guns and pack this stuff in a
way to give the maximum space in the rear seat.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Jackson said.

‘Am I going then?’ the girl asked.

‘No,’ the Colonel told her.

‘Why can’t I go?’

‘You know very well. You weren’t invited.’

‘Please don’t be bad.’

‘Christ, Daughter, if you knew how hard I am trying
not to be. It’s easy if you’re bad. Let’s pay this good man
off and go over and sit on the bench there under the tree.’

He paid the owner of the motor boat and told him that
he had not forgotten about the jeep engine. He also told
him not to count on it, but that there was a good chance
that he could get it.

‘It will be a used engine. But it will be better than that
coffee pot you have in there now.’

They went up the worn stone steps and walked across
the gravel and sat on a bench under the trees.

The trees were black and moved in the wind and there
were no leaves on them. The leaves had fallen early that
year and been swept up long ago.

A man came over to offer postcards for sale and the
Colonel told him, ‘Run along, son. We don’t need you
now.’

The girl was crying, finally, although she had made the
decision never to cry.

‘Look, Daughter,’ the Colonel said. ‘There isn’t any¬
thing to say. They didn’t install shock-absorbers in this
vehicle we ride in now.’

‘I’ve stopped,’ she said. ‘I’m not an hysterical.’

‘I wouldn’t say you were. I’d say you were the loveliest
and most beautiful girl that ever lived. Any time. Any
place. Anywhere.’

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ACROSS THE RIVER

Tf it were true, what difference would it make?’

‘You have me there,’ the Colonel said, ‘But it is true.’

‘So now what?’

‘So now we stand up and kiss each other and say good¬
bye.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I don’t know,’ the Colonel said. ‘I guess that is one of
the things everybody has to figure out for themselves.’

‘I’ll try to figure it.’

‘Just take it as easy as you can, Daughter.’

‘Yes,’ the girl said. ‘In the vehicle without the shock-
absorbers.’

‘You were tumbril bait from the start.’

‘Can’t you do anything kindly?’

‘I guess not. But I’ve tried.’

‘Please keep on trying. That’s all the hope we have.’

‘I’ll keep on trying.’

So they held each other close and kissed each other hard
and true and the Colonel took the girl across the stretch
of gravel and down the stone steps.

‘You ought to take a good one. Not that old displaced
engine boat.’

‘I’d rather take the displaced engine boat if you don’t
mind.’

‘Mind?’ the Colonel said. ‘Not me. I only give orders
and obey orders. I don’t mind. Goodbye, my dear,
lovely, beautiful.’

‘Goodbye,’ she said.

230

CHAPTER XL

H e was in the sunken oak hogshead that they used
in the Veneto for blinds. A blind is any artifice you
use to hide the shooter from that which he is
attempting to shoot, which, in this case, were ducks.

It had been a good trip out with the boys, once they had
met in the garage and a good evening with excellent food
cooked on the old open-hearth kitchen. Three shooters
rode in the rear seat, on the way to the shooting place.
Those who did not lie had permitted themselves a certain
amount of exaggeration and the liars had never been in
fuller flower.

A liar, in full flower, the Colonel had thought, is as
beautiful as cherry trees, or apple trees when they are in
blossom. Who should ever discourage a liar, he thought,
unless he is giving you co-ordinates?

The Colonel had collected liars all his life, as some men
gather postage stamps. He did not classify them, except at
the moment, nor treasure them truly. He just enjoyed,
completely, hearing them lie at the moment, unless, of
course, something concerned with duty was involved.
Last night there had been a fair amount of good lying
after the grappa had been passed around and the Colonel
had enjoyed it.

There had been smoke in the room from the open
charcoal fire; no, there were logs, he thought. Anyway a
liar lies best when there is a little smoke or when the sun
has set.

He had come close to lying twice himself and had held
it up and merely exaggerated. I hope anyway, he thought.

Now here was the frozen lagoon to ruin everything.
But it was not ruined.

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ACROSS THE RIVER

A pair of pin-tails came, suddenly, from nowhere,
slanting down fast in a dive no aeroplane ever made and
the Colonel heard their feathered trajectory and swung
and killed the drake. He lay on the ice, hitting it as solid
as a duck can hit ice and, before he was down, the Colonel
had killed his mate, who was climbing, long-necked and
fast.

She fell alongside the drake.

So it is murder, the Colonel thought. And what isn’t
nowadays? But, boy, you can still shoot.

Boy, hell, he thought. You beat-up old bastard. But
look at them come now.

They were widgeon and they came in a whisp that
coagulated and then stretched to nothing. Then they co¬
agulated again and the treacherous duck on the ice
started to talk to them.

Let them turn once more, the Colonel said to himself.
Keep your head down and do not move even your eyes.
They are going to come in.

They came in well, with treachery speaking to
them.

Their wings were suddenly set to alight, as when you
lower the flaps. Then they saw it was ice and they rose,
climbing.

The shooter, who was not a Colonel now, nor anything
but a gun handler, rose in the wooden barrel and got two.
They hit the ice almost as solidly as the big ducks.

Two is enough from one family, the Colonel said. Or
was it one tribe?

The Colonel heard a shot behind him, where he knew
there was no other blind and turned his head to look
across the frozen lagoon to the far, sedge-lined shore.

That does it, he thought.

A bunch of mallards, that had been coming in low, were

232

& INTO THE TREES

flaring up into the sky, seeming to stand on their tails as
they climbed.

He saw one fall, then heard another shot.

It was the sullen boatman shooting at the ducks that
would have come to the Colonel.

How, how can he do that? the Colonel thought.

The man had a shot-gun to shoot any cripples that might
be escaping where the dog could not get them. For him to
fire at ducks that were coming to the Colonel’s blind was,
in shooting, as bad a thing as one man could do to
another.

The boatman was too far away to hear a shout. So the
Colonel fired at him twice.

It is too far for the pellets to reach, he thought, but at
least he will know that I know what he is doing. What the
hell is this all about? On a beautifully run shoot like this
one too? This is the best organized and best run duck
shoot I have ever shot at and I have had as much fun
shooting here as I ever had in my life. What is the matter
with that son of a bitch?

He knew how bad his anger was for him. So he took
two of tlie pills and washed them down wdth a drink of
Gordon’s gin from his flask since there was no water.

He knew the gin was bad for him too and he thought,
everything is bad for me except rest and very light
exercise. O.K., rest and light exercise, boy. Do you
suppose that is light exercise?

You, beauty, he said to himself. I wish you were here
now and we were in the double blind and if we could only
just feel the backs of our shoulders touch. I’d look around
and see you and I would shoot the high ducks well, to
show off and try to put one in the blind without having it
hit you. I’d try to pull one down like this, he said, hearing
the wings in the air. He rose, turned, saw the single drake,

233

ACROSS THE RIVER

long-necked and beautiful, the wings fast moving and
travelling to the sea. He saw him sharp and clear and in
the sky with the mountains behind him. He met him,
covered him and pulled as he swung as far back as he
could swing the gun.

The drake came down on the ice, just outside the
perimeter of the blind and broke the ice as he fell. It was
the ice that had been broken to put out the decoys and
it had re-frozen lightly. The calling hen looked at him as
he lay and shifted her feet.

‘You never saw him before in your life,* the Colonel
said to the hen. T don’t believe you even saw him com¬
ing. Though you may have. But you didn’t say any¬
thing.’

The drake had hit with his head down and his head was
under the ice. But the Colonel could see the beautiful
winter plumage on his breast and wings.

I’d like to give her a vest made of the whole plumage
the way the old Mexicans used to ornament their gods, he
thought. But I suppose these ducks have to go to the
market and no one would know how to skin and cure the
skins anyway. It could be beautiful, though, with mallard
drake skins for the back and sprig for the front with two
longitudinal stripes of teal. One coming down over each
breast. Be a hell of a vest. I’m pretty sure she’d like it.

I wish that they would fly, the Colonel thought. A few
fool ducks might come in. I have to stay ready for them
if they do. But none came in and he had to think.

There were no shots from the other blinds and only
occasional shots from the sea.

With the good light, the birds could see the ice and they
no longer came in and instead went out to the open sea
to raft up. So he had no shooting and he thought with¬
out intention, trying to find what had made it at the first.

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& INTO THE TREES

He knew he did not deserve it and he accepted it and he
lived by it, but he sought, always, to understand it.

One time it had been two sailors when he had been
walking with the girl at night. They had whistled at her
and, the Colonel thought, that was a harmless enough
thing and he should have let it go.

But there was something wrong with it. He sensed it
before he knew it. Then he knew it solidly, because he
had stopped under a light, in order that they might see
what he wore on his shoulders, so that they might take the
other side of the street.

What he wore on each shoulder was a small eagle with
wings out-stretched. It was embroidered on to the coat he
wore in silver thread. It was not conspicuous and it had
been there a long time. But it was visible.

The two sailors whistled again.

‘Stay over there against the wall if you want to watch
it,’ the Colonel had said to the girl. ‘Or look away,’

‘They are very big and young.’

‘They won’t be big for long,’ the Colonel promised her.

The Colonel walked over to the whistlers.

‘Where is your shore patrol?’ he asked.

‘How would I know?’ the biggest whistler said. ‘All I
want is a good look at the dame.’

‘Do people like you have names and serial numbers?’

‘How would I know,’ one said.

The other said, ‘I wouldn’t tell a chicken Colonel if
I had.’

Old army boy, the Colonel thought, before he hit him.
Sea lawyer. Knows all his rights.

But he hit him with a left from nowhere and hit him
three times as he started to go.

The other one, the first whistler, had closed fast and
well, for a man who had been drinking, and the Colonel

235

ACROSS THE RIVER

gave him the elbow in the mouth and then, under the
light, had a good right hand shot at him. When it was in,
he glanced at the second whistler and saw that was okay.

Then he threw a left hook. Then he put the right way
into the body, coming up. He threw another left hook and
then turned away and walked towards the girl because he
did not want to hear the head hit the pavement.

He checked on the one that had it first and noted he
slept peacefully, chin down, with the blood coming out of
his mouth. But it was still the right colour, the Colonel
noted.

‘Well, there goes my career,’ he said to the girl. ‘What¬
ever that was. But those people certainly wear funny
pants.’

‘How are you?’ the girl asked.

‘I’m fine. Did you watch it?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll have bad hands in the morning,’ he said absent-
mindedly. ‘But I think we can walk away from it all
right. But let’s walk slowly.’

‘Please walk slowly.’

‘I did not mean it that way. I meant let’s not be hurried
in our departure.’

‘We will walk as slowly as two people can walk.’

So they walked.

‘Do you want to try an experiment?’

‘Of course.’

‘Let’s walk so we make even the backs of our legs look
dangerous.’

‘I’ll try. But I don’t think I can.’

‘Well, let’s just walk then.’

‘But didn’t they hit you?’

‘One pretty good right behind the ear. The second boy
when he came in.’

236

& INTO THE TREES

Ts that what fighting’s like?’

‘When you’re lucky.’

‘And when you’re not lucky?’

‘Your knees bend too. Either forward or backward.’

‘Do you still care for me after you have fought?’

‘I love you much more than before if it were possible.’

‘Can’t it be possible? It would be nice. I love you more
since I saw that thing. Am I walking slowly enough?’

‘You walk like a deer in the forest and sometimes you
walk as well as a wolf, or an old, big coyote when he is
not hurried.’

‘I’m not sure I wish to be an old big coyote.’

‘Wait till you see one,’ the Colonel said. ‘You’ll wish.
You walk like all the great predators, when they walk
softly. And you are not a predator.’

‘That I can promise.’

‘Walk a little ahead so I can see.’

She walked ahead and the Colonel said, ‘You walk like
a champion before he is the champion. If you were a
horse I would buy you if I had to borrow the money at
twenty per cent a month.’

‘You don’t have to buy me.’

‘I know about that. That was not what we were dis¬
cussing. We were discussing your gait.’

‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘What happens to those men?
That’s one of the things I don’t know about fighting.
Shouldn’t I have stayed and cared for them?’

‘Never,’ the Colonel told her. ‘Remember that; never.
I hope they split a good concussion between them. They
can rot. They caused the accident. There is no question
of civil responsibility. We were all insured. If I can tell
you one thing, Renata, about fighting.’

‘Tell me, please.’

‘If you ever fight, then you must win it. That’s all that

237

ACROSS THE RIVER

counts. All the rest is cabbage, as my old friend Dr.
Rommel put it.’

‘Did you really like Rommel?’

‘Very much.’

‘But he was your enemy.’

‘I love my enemies, sometimes, more than my friends.
And the Navy, you know, wins all their fights always.
This I learned in a place called the Pentagon building
when I was still permitted to enter that building by the
front door. If you like we can stroll back down this street,
or walk it fast and ask those two that question.’

‘I tell you truly, Richard. I have seen enough fighting
for one night.’

‘Me too, to tell the truth,’ the Colonel said. But he said
it in Italian and it started, ^Anche io. Let’s go to Harry’s
for one, and then I will walk you home.’

‘Didn’t you hurt your bad hand?’

‘No,’ he explained. ‘I only threw it once to the head.
The other times I punched to the body with it.’

‘May I feel it?’

‘If you will feel very softly.’

‘But it is terribly swollen.’

‘There is nothing broken in it and that sort of swelling
always goes down.’

‘Do you love me?’

‘Yes. I love you with two moderately swollen hands
and all my heart.’

238

CHAPTER XLI

S O that was that and maybe it was that day or maybe
it was another that made the miracle. You never
knew, he thought. There was the great miracle and
he had never consciously implemented it. Nor, he
thought, you son of a bitch, did you ever oppose it.

It was colder than ever and the broken ice re-froze and
the calling duck did not even look up now. She had
abandoned treachery for an attempt at security.

You bitch, the Colonel thought. Though that is unjust.
It is your trade. But why is it a hen calls better than a
drake. You ought to know, he thought. And even that’s
not true. What the hell is true? Drakes actually call
better.

Now don’t think of her. Don’t think of Renata because
it won’t do you any good, boy. It might even be bad for
you. Also you said goodbye. What a goodbye that was.
Complete with tumbrils. And she would have climbed up
in the damned tumbril with you too. Just so long as it was
a real tumbril. Very rough trade, he thought. Loving
and leaving. People can get hurt at it.

Who gave you a right to know a girl like that?

Nobody, he answered. But Andrea introduced me to her.
But how could she love a sad son of a bitch like you?

I do not know, he thought truly. I truly do not know.
He did not know, among other things, that the girl
loved him because he had never been sad one waking
morning of his life; attack or no attack. He had experi¬
enced anguish and sorrow. But he had never been sad in
the morning.

They make almost none like that and the girl, although
she was a young girl, knew one when she saw one.

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ACROSS THE RIVER

Now she is at home and sleeping, the Colonel thought.
That is where she ought to be and not in any god-damn
duck blind with the decoys frozen up on us.

I wish to hell she was here though, if this were a double
blind and have her looking to the west just in case one
string did come in. It would be nice if she were warm
enough. Maybe I can trade somebody out of one of these
real down jackets that nobody ever sold that had one.
The kind they issued to the Air Force once by mistake.

I could find out how they are quilted and make one
with duck down from here, he thought. Fd get a good
tailor to cut it and we would make it double-breasted
with no pocket on the right and lay in a chamois shooting
patch so the gun butt would never catch.

ril do it, he said to himself. Fll do it, or I will get one
off some joker and have it cut down for her. Fd like to
get her a good Purdey 12, not too damn light, or a pair of
Boss over and unders. She should have guns as good as
she is. I suppose a pair of Purdey’s, he thought.

Just then he heard the light swish of pinions, fast
beating in the air and looked up. But they were too high.
He only looked up with his eyes. But they were so high
they could see the barrel and him in it and the frozen-in
decoys with the dejected hen, who saw them too and
quacked hard in her loyal treachery. The ducks, they
were pintails, continued on their flight out towards the
sea.

I never give her anything, as she pointed out. There
was the small moor’s head. But it does not mean any¬
thing. She selected it and I bought it. That is no way to
give a gift.

What I would like to give her is security, wliich does not
exist any more; all my love, which is wortliless; all my

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& INTO THE TREES

worldly goods, which are practically non-existent except
for two good shot-guns, my soldier suits, the medals and
decorations with the citations and some books. Also a
retired ColonePs pay.

With all my worldly goods I thee endow, he thought.

And she gave me her love, some hard stones, which I
returned, and the picture. Well, I can always give her
back the picture. I could give her my ring from V.M.I.,
he thought, but where the hell did I lose that?

She wouldn’t want a D.S.C. with cluster, nor two silver
stars, nor the other junk, nor the medals of her own
country. Nor those of France. Nor those of Belgium. Nor
the trick ones. That would be morbid.

I better just give her my love. But how the hell do you
send it? And how do you keep it fresh? They can’t pack it
in dry ice.

Maybe they can. I must inquire. But how do I get that
condemned jeep engine to that old man?

Figure it out, he thought. Figuring things out has been
your trade. Figuring things out when they were shooting
at you, he added.

I wish that son of a bitch that is lousing up the duck
shooting had a rifle and I had a rifle. We would find out
pretty soon who could figure things out. Even in a lousy
barrel in a marsh where you can’t manoeuvre. He’d have
to come to get me.

Stop that, he said to himself, and think about your girl.
You do not want to kill anyone any more; ever.

Who are you feeding that to, he told himself. You
going to run as a Christian? You might give it an honest
try. She would like you better that way. Or would she?
I don’t know, he said frankly. I honest to God don’t
know.

Maybe I will get Christian towards the end. Yes, he

Q A.R.i.T. 241

ACROSS THE RIVER

said, maybe you will. Who wants to make a bet on that?

‘You want to bet on that?’ he asked the calling duck.
But she was looking up at the sky behind him and had
commenced her small chuckling talk.

They came over too high and never circled. They only
looked down and went on towards the open sea.

They must really be rafted up out there, the Colonel
thought. There’s probably some punt gunner trying to
sneak up on them now. They will be pretty close into the
lee with the wind and someone is sneaking on to them
now surely. Well, when he makes his shot some may break
back this way. But with it frozen-up I suppose I really
ought to pull out instead of staying here like a fool.

I have killed enough and I have shot as well or better
than I can shoot. Better hell, he thought. Nobody shoots
better than you here except Alvarito and he’s a kid and
shoots faster. But you kill fewer ducks than many bad and
fair shots.

Yes, I know about that. I know about that and why
and we don’t go by the numbers any more and we threw
away the book too, remember?

He remembered how, by some miracle of chance in a
war, he had been with his best friend for a moment in
action in the Ardennes and they were pursuing.

It was early fall and it was on a high upland with sandy
roads and trails and the trees were scrub oak and pines.
The enemy tank and half track prints showed clearly in
the moist sand.

It had rained the day before, but now it was clearing
and visibility was good and you could see well across all
the high, rolling country and he and his friend were glass¬
ing it as carefully as though they were hunting game.

The Colonel, who was a General then and an assistant
divisional commander, knew the individual print of each

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& INTO THE TREES

tracked vehicle they were pursuing. He also knew when
the enemy vehicles had run out of mines and approxim¬
ately the number of rounds that remained to them. He
also had figured where they had to fight before they
reached the Siegfried. He was sure they would not fight
at either of these two places but would race for where they
were going.

‘We’re pretty far up for people of our exalted rank,
George,’ he said to his best friend.

‘Ahead of the point, General.’

‘It’s okay,’ the Colonel had said. ‘Now we throw away
the book and chase for keeps.’

‘I couldn’t agree more fully, General. Because I wrote
the book myself,’ his best friend said. ‘But suppose they
had left something there?’

He pointed to the logical place to defend.

‘They didn’t leave anything there,’ the Colonel had
said. ‘They haven’t enough stuff left even for a fire-fight.’

‘Everybody’s right until he’s wrong,’ his best friend
said, adding, ‘General.’

‘I’m right,’ the Colonel said. He was right, too,
although in obtaining his exact knowledge he had not
fulfilled the complete spirit of the Geneva Convention
which was alleged to govern the operation of war.

‘Let’s really chase,’ his best friend had said.

‘There’s nothing holding us up and I guarantee they
won’t stop at either of those two. I didn’t get that from
any Kraut either. That’s from my head.’

He looked over the country once more, and heard the
wind in the trees and smelled the heather under their
boots and looked once more at the tracks in the wet sand
and that was the end of that story.

I wonder if she’d like that? he thought. No. It builds
me up too much. I’d like to get somebody else to tell it

243

ACROSS THE RIVER

to her though and build me solid. George can’t tell it to
her. He’s the only one that could tell it to her and he
can’t. He sure as hell can’t.

I’ve been right over ninety-five per cent of the time and
that’s a hell of a batting average even in something as
simple as war. But that five per cent when you are wrong
can certainly be something.

I’ll never tell you about that, Daughter. That’s just a
noise heard off stage in my heart. My lousy chicken heart.
That bastard heart certainly couldn’t hold the pace.

Maybe he will, he thought, and took two of the tablets
and a swallow of gin and looked across the grey ice.

I’m going to get that sullen character in now and pick
up and get the hell to the farm house or the lodge, I
suppose that I should call it. The shooting’s over.

244

CHAPTER XLII

T h e Colonel had signalled the boatman in by stand¬
ing up, in the sunken barrel, firing two shots towards
the empty sky, and then waving him towards the

blind.

The boat came in slowly, breaking ice all the way, and
the man picked up the wooden decoys, caught the calling
hen and put her in her sack, and, with the dog slithering
on the ice, picked up the ducks. The boatman’s anger
seemed to be gone and to be replaced by a solid satisfaction.
‘You shot very few,’ he said to the Colonel.

‘With your help.’

That was all they said and the boatman placed the
ducks carefully, breasts up, on the bow of the boat and the
Colonel handed his guns and the combination cartridge
box and shooting stool into the boat.

The Colonel got into the boat and the boatman checked
the blind and unhooked the pocketed, apron-like device
which had hung on the inside of the blind to hold shells.
Then he got into the boat too and they commenced their
slow and laborious progress out through the ice to the open
water of the brown canal. The Colonel worked as hard
with the poling oar as he had worked coming in. But now,
in the bright sunlight, with the snow mountains to the
north, and the line of the sedge that marked the canal
ahead of them, they worked together in complete co¬
ordination.

Then they were into the canal, slipping breakingly in
from the last ice; then, suddenly, light-borne and the
Colonel handed the big oar to the boatman and sat down.
He was sweating.

The dog, who had been shivering at the Colonel’s feet,

245

ACROSS THE RIVER

pawed his way over the gunwale of the boat and swam to
the canal bank. Shaking the water from his white be¬
draggled coat, he was into the brown sedge and brush, and
the Colonel watched his progress towards home by the
movement of the brush. He had never received his
sausage.

The Colonel, feeling himself sweating, although he
knew he was protected from the wind by his field jacket,
took two tablets from the bottle and a sip of gin from his
flask.

The flask was flat and of silver with a leather cover.
Under the leather cover, which was worn and stained, it
was engraved, on one side, to Richard From Renata With
Love. No one had ever seen this inscription except the
girl, the Colonel and the man who had engraved it. It
had not been engraved in the same place it was purchased.
That was in the earliest days, the Colonel thought. Now
who cared?

On the screw-on top of the flask was engraved From R.
to R.C.

The Colonel offered the flask to the boatman who looked
at him, at the flask, and said, ‘What is it?’

‘English grappa.’

‘I’ll try it.’

He took a long drink of it; the type of drink peasants
take from a flask.

‘Thank you.’

‘Did you have good shooting?’

‘I killed four ducks. The dog found three cripples shot
by other people.’

‘Why did you shoot?’

‘I’m sorry that I shot. I shot in anger.’

I have done that myself sometimes, the Colonel thought,
and did not ask him what the anger was about.

246

& INTO THE TREES

T am sorry they did not fly better/

‘That’s the way things go,’ the Colonel said.

The Colonel was watching the movement the dog made
in the high grass and sedge. Suddenly he saw him stop;
he was quite still. Then he pounced. It was a high leap
and a dive forward and down.

‘He has a crippled,’ he said to the boatman.

‘Bobby,’ the boatman called. ‘Bring. Bring.’

The sedge moved and the dog came out with a mallard
drake in his jaws. The grey white neck and the green head
were swaying up and down as a snake’s might move. It
was a movement without hope.

The boatman put the boat in sharp for shore.

‘I’ll take him,’ the Colonel said. ‘Bobby!’

He took the duck from the dog’s light-holding mouth
and felt him intact and sound and beautiful to hold, and
with his heart beating and his captured, hopeless eyes.

He looked at him carefully, gentling him as you might
gentle a horse.

‘He’s only wing-tipped,’ he said. ‘We’ll keep him for
a caller or to turn loose in the spring. Here, take him
and put him in the sack with the hen.’

The boatman took him carefully and put him in the
burlap bag that was under the bow. The Colonel heard
the hen speak to him. Or, maybe she is protesting, he
thought. He could not understand duck-talk through a
burlap bag.

‘Take a shot of this,’ he said to the boatman. ‘It’s
damned cold today.’

The boatman took the flask and drank deeply again.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Your grappa is very, very good.’

247

CHAPTER XLIII

A T the landing, before the long low stone house by the
ZA side of the canal, there were ducks laid out on the
Jl Aground in rows.

They were laid in groups that were never of the same
number. There were a few platoons, no companies, and,
the Colonel thought, I barely have a squad.

The head game-keeper was standing on the bank in his
high boots, his short jacket and his pushed back old felt
hat, and he looked critically at the number of ducks on
the bow of the boat as they came alongshore.

Tt was frozen-up at our post,’ the Colonel said.

T suspected so,’ the head keeper said. T’m sorry. It
was supposed to be the best post.’

^Who was top gun?’

‘The Barone killed forty-two. There was a little current
there that kept it open for a while. You probably did not
hear the shooting because it was against the wind.’

‘Where is everyone?’

‘They’re all gone except the Barone who is waiting for
you. Your driver is asleep in the house.’

‘He would be,’ the Colonel said.

‘Spread those out properly,’ the head-keeper told the
boatman who was a game-keeper too. ‘I want to put them
in the game book.’

‘There is one green-head drake in the bag who is only
wing-tipped.’

‘Good. I will take good care of him.’

‘I will go inside and see the Barone. I’ll see you
later.’

‘You must get warm,’ the head keeper said. ‘It’s been
a bitter day, my Colonel.’

& INTO THE TREES

The Colonel started to walk towards the door of the
house.

T’ll see you later/ he said to the boatman.

‘Yes, my Colonel,’ the boatman said.

Alvarito, the Barone, was standing by the open fire in
the middle of the room. He smiled his shy smile and said
in his low pitched voice, ‘I am sorry you did not have
better shooting.’

‘We froze up completely. I enjoyed what there was
very much.’

‘Are you very cold?’

‘Not too cold.’

‘We can have something to eat.’

‘Thank you. I’m not hungry. Have you eaten?’

‘Yes. The others went on and I let them take my car.
Can you give me a lift to Latisana or just above? I can get
transportation from there.’

‘Of course.’

‘It was a shame that it should freeze. The prospects
were so good.’

‘There must have been a world of ducks outside.’

‘Yes. But now they won’t stay with their feed frozen
over. The) will be on their way south tonight.’

‘Will they all go?’

‘All except our local ducks that breed here. They’ll
stay as long as there is any open water.’

‘I’m sorry for the shoot.’

‘I’m sorry you came so far for so few ducks.’

‘I always love the shoot,’ the Colonel said. ‘And I love
Venice.’

The Barone Alvarito looked away and spread his hands
towards the fire. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We all love Venice.
Perhaps you do the best of all.’

249

ACROSS THE RIVER

The Colonel made no small talk on this but said, T love
Venice as you know.’

‘Yes. I know,’ the Barone said. He looked at nothing.
Then he said, ‘We must wake your driver.’

‘Has he eaten?’

‘Eaten and slept and eaten and slept. He has also read
a little in some illustrated books he brought with him.’

‘Comic books,’ the Colonel said.

‘I should learn to read them,’ the Barone said. He
smiled the shy, dark smile. ‘Could you get me some from
Trieste?’

‘Any amount,’ the Colonel told him. ‘From superman
on up into the improbable. Read some for me. Look,
Alvarito, what was the matter with that game-keeper who
poled my boat? He seemed to have a hatred for me at the
start. Pretty well through, too.’

‘It was the old battle-jacket. Allied uniform affects him
that way. You see he was a bit over-liberated.’

‘Go on.’

‘When the Moroccans came through here they raped
both his wife and his daughter.’

‘I think I’d better have a drink,’ the Colonel said.

‘There is grappa there on the table.’

250

CHAPTER XLIV

T hey had dropped the Barone off at a villa with
great gates, a gravelled drive and a house, which,
since it was over six miles from any military objective,
had the good fortune not to have been bombed.

The Colonel had said goodbye and Alvarito had told
him to come down and shoot any, or every, week-end.
‘You’re sure you won’t come in?’

‘No. I must get back to Trieste. Will you give my love
to Renata?’

‘I will. Is that her portrait that you have wrapped in
the back of the car?’

‘It is.’

‘I’ll tell her that you shot very well and that the portrait
was in good condition.’

‘Also my love.’

‘Also your love.’

‘Ciao, Alvarito and thank you very much.’

‘Ciflo, my Colonel. If one can say ciao to a Colonel.’
‘Consider me not a Colonel.’

‘It is very difficult. Goodbye, my Colonel.’

‘In case of any unforeseen contingencies would you ask
her to have the portrait picked up at the Gritti?’

‘Yes, my Colonel.’

‘That’s all, I guess.’

‘Goodbye, my Colonel.’

a.-)!

CHAPTER XLV

T hey were out on the road now and the early dark¬
ness was beginning.

‘Turn left,’ the Colonel said.

‘That’s not the road for Trieste, sir,’ Jackson said.

‘The hell with the road to Trieste. I ordered you to
turn left. Do you think there is only one way in the world
to get to Trieste?’

‘No, sir. I was only pointing out to the Colonel -- ’
‘Don’t you point me out a God-damn thing and until
I direct you otherwise, don’t speak to me until you are
spoken to.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’m sorry, Jackson. What I mean is I know where I’m
going and I want to think.’

‘Yes, sir.’

They were on the old road that he knew so well and
the Colonel thought, well, I sent four of the ducks I
promised to those I promised them to at the Gritti. There
wasn’t enough shooting to be enough feathers to do that
boy’s wife any good with feathers. But they are all big
ducks and fat and they will be good eating. I forgot to
give Bobby the sausage.

There was no time to write Renata a note. But what
could I say, in a note, that we did not say?

He reached into his pocket and found a pad and pencil.
He put on the map-reading light, and with his bad hand,
printed a short message in block letters.

‘Put that in your pocket, Jackson, and act on it if
necessary. If the circumstances described occur, it is an
order.’

‘Yes, sir,’Jackson said and took the folded order blank

252

& INTO THE TREES

with one hand and put it in the top left-hand pocket of his
tunic.

Now take it easy, the Colonel said to himself. Any
further concern you may have is about yourself and that
is just a luxury.

You are no longer of any real use to the Army of the
United States. That has been made quite clear.

You have said goodbye to your girl and she has said
goodbye to you.

That is certainly simple.

You shot well and Alvarito understands. That is
that.

So what the hell do you have to worrry about, boy? I
hope you’re not the type of jerk who worries about what
happens to him when there’s nothing to be done. Let’s
certainly hope not.

Just then it hit him as he had known it would since they
had picked up the decoys.

Three strikes is out, he thought, and they gave me four.
I’ve always been a lucky son of a bitch.

It hit him again badly.

Jackson,’ he said. ‘Do you know what General
Thomas J. Jackson said on one occasion? On the occasion
of his unfortunate death. I memorized it once. I can’t
respond for its accuracy of course. But this is how it was
reported; “Order A. P. Hill to prepare for action.” Then
some more delirious stuff. Then he said, “No, no, let us
cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.” ’

‘That’s very interesting, sir,’ Jackson said. ‘That must
have been Stonewall Jackson, sir.’

The Colonel started to speak but he stopped while it
hit him the third time and gripped him so he knew he
could not live.

‘Jackson,’ the Colonel said. ‘Pull up at the side of the

253

ACROSS THE RIVER

road and cut to your parking lights. Do you know the
way to Trieste from here?’

‘Yes, sir, I have my map.’

‘Good. Fm now going to get into the large back seat
of this god-damned, over-sized luxurious automobile.’

That was the last thing the Colonel ever said. But he
made the back seat all right and he shut the door. He
shut it carefully and well.

After a while Jackson drove the car down the ditch and
willow lined road with the car’s big lights on, looking for
a place to turn. He found one, finally, and turned care¬
fully. When he was on the right-hand side of the road,
facing south towards the road junction that would put
him on the highway that led to Trieste, the one he was
familiar with, he put his map light on and took out the
order blank and read:

IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH THE WRAPPED PAINTING
AND THE TWO SHOT GUNS IN THIS CAR WILL BE RE¬
TURNED TO THE HOTEL GRITTI VENICE WHERE THEY
WILL BE CLAIMED BY THEIR RIGHTFUL OWNER SIGNED
RICHARD CANTWELL, COL., INFANTRY, U.S.A,

‘They’ll return them all right, through channels,’ Jack-
son thought, and put the car in gear.

254

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